Praying for both teams: how religion both facilitates anddampens anti-immigration sentiment

The majority of the populations of many countries, the US included, identify with some kind of religion. At the same time, anti-immigrant sentiments are on the rise in many countries. Does religion foster intolerance towards migrants or encourage greater acceptance of them? In new research which uses experiments conducted with a variety of religious groups, Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom, Gizem Arikan , and Marie Courtemanche find that when religious group identities are emphasized people become less tolerant of migrants, but when themes of religious compassion are brought to mind, they are more likely to be sympathetic. They caution, however, that such attempts at invoking compassion may be unlikely to convince the more conservative among the devout.