A new study published in Ethos challenges the perception that most Americans view growing diversity as a problem. In a nationally representative survey, researchers found that the vast majority of Americans—including many White Christians—prefer a country that is more ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse than it is today. Only a small fraction of respondents endorsed the idea of an ethnically or religiously homogenous society.
The research team, which included psychologists and sociologists from the University of Copenhagen, Yale University, and the University of Chicago, set out to examine how American citizens perceive and evaluate the country’s demographic makeup. The authors wanted to know whether Americans see a diverse population as a desirable feature of national identity, or if some prefer a more uniform society. At the heart of their investigation was a concept they called “ideal demography judgment,” or how people believe the country’s racial, ethnic, and religious composition should look at the national level.
“As a cultural psychologist, I am interested in similarities and differences across groups of people. Immigration, resulting in the mixing of different cultural groups, is one of the defining issues of our time,” said study author Séamus A. Power, an associate professor of cultural psychology at the University of Copenhagen, visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics, and author of the forthcoming book, “Inequality – The View From Manywheres.”
“Authoritarian leaders have been skillful in representing immigrants – particularly immigrants from the Global South – as subtractive, rather than additive, to societies in the Global North. We could see this most clearly during the first election of Donald Trump as President of the United States where immigration was a key diverse political issue between Democrats and conservatives.”
“On the one hand, right-wing media helped to amplify fears of immigration and fears of ‘the great replacement’ of white Christian Americans. On the other hand, left-wing media frequently highlighted the prominence of angry white Christian nationalists and their threat to American democracy. Yet, America has been multicultural since its beginning and continues to be a complex multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and multi-religious society today.”
“Within this context, my colleagues and I were motivated to investigate to what degree do people in the United States value this multiculturalism and to what degree they value ethnonationalism,” Power explained. “We were curious to see, within a society seemed to be marked by extreme political polarization, what were people’s ideal demography judgments.”
The researchers administered an online survey in August 2021 to a sample of 986 American adults using Qualtrics. The sample was designed to reflect the broader U.S. population in terms of age, race, gender, religion, and political orientation. Participants were asked to estimate the actual racial and religious makeup of the country and then to describe what they considered to be an ideal distribution. These estimates and preferences were collected using percentage sliders for a variety of racial, ethnic, and religious groups.
The findings showed that Americans consistently underestimated the proportion of White and Protestant individuals in the country and overestimated the presence of smaller groups, such as Muslims, Hindus, and Native Americans. But more importantly, when participants were asked to describe their ideal version of America’s population, the majority chose a vision that was more diverse—not less—than reality.
Two-thirds of respondents indicated that they would prefer the United States to be more ethnically and racially diverse than it was in 2020. In fact, over 40 percent preferred a level of ethnic diversity that exceeds even the country’s most diverse counties.
Only about one percent of respondents favored a racially homogenous nation, and even within this small group, most did not identify the same racial group as ideal. Similarly, fewer than four percent of respondents favored a mono-religious society, and again, those who did were divided between various religious and non-religious identities.
These attitudes held even among members of dominant groups. While White Christians did express a slightly stronger preference for ingroup representation, they still, on average, supported a more diverse America than exists today. Nearly two-thirds of White Christian respondents supported a demographic vision more diverse than the current national average. Their preferences were lower than those of minority group members but still indicated broad acceptance of a pluralistic society.
Political orientation did play a modest role in demographic preferences and perceptions. People on the political extremes—both left and right—tended to be more accurate in estimating actual demographic proportions, while those identifying as politically neutral made the largest errors. But even among conservatives, ideal demographic preferences were generally inclusive.
“The overwhelming support for an ethnically, racially, and religiously more diverse United States was very interesting, but it was really surprising to see the degree to which this was evident,” Power told PsyPost. “Sure, all groups indicated they wanted more of their own group, when they presented their ideal demographic judgment, but none wanted a mono-ethnic or mono-religious United States.”
“A significant amount wanted even greater ethnic and racial diversity than the currently most diverse county (Hawaii) in the United States – that one really took me by surprise! It was also surprising to find that people who identified as being more extremely positioned on the political right or left were actually better at judging the current demographic composition of the United States.”
The researchers point out that this aligns with historical patterns of American pluralism. From James Madison’s early writings about the benefits of balancing “factions” in society, to modern multicultural policies that embrace racial, ethnic, and religious difference, the United States has long fostered space for identity-based diversity. While countries like France often emphasize cultural assimilation and downplay group identity in public life, the American model has typically done the opposite—recognizing and even celebrating diversity in public discourse, education, and law.
“The most important takeaway from our study is that multiculturalism, not ethnonationalism, is the foundation and desired future of the United States,” Power said.
That said, the researchers emphasized that the presence of even a small minority endorsing exclusionary ideals should not be dismissed.
“Although multiculturalism, not ethnonationalism, seems to be the dominant cultural model in the United States, some respondents indicated a desire for a mono-ethnic, mono-racial, and mono- religious composition of the United States,” Power noted. “Readers should be mindful that, when these small percentages as scaled up to the entire population of the United States, these extreme views can have significant impact on the community and national level in the United States.”
This study’s findings echo a 2024 study published in Scientific Reports, which found that Americans consistently underestimate how much others support diversity and inclusion. That research, led by Naomi Isenberg and Markus Brauer, revealed a widespread pattern of “pluralistic ignorance”—a situation where people assume they’re in the minority for holding pro-diversity views, even when they’re not.
When participants in that study were informed about the actual high levels of public support for diversity, they became more likely to confront discrimination and adopt inclusive behaviors. The implication is that people are not only more accepting than they think others are—they may act less inclusively simply because they mistakenly believe they are alone in their beliefs.
Together, the two studies paint a consistent picture. Despite a noisy and sometimes hostile political discourse around race, religion, and immigration, most Americans appear to hold inclusive values about who belongs in their country. While a small percentage of the population may genuinely favor a homogenous national identity, the ideal held by the overwhelming majority includes a mosaic of racial and religious backgrounds.
As with all research, the study has limitations. While it employed a representative sample, the study relied on self-reported preferences in a survey format. These preferences may be shaped by social norms or perceived expectations. Some respondents may have provided more socially acceptable answers, even when given anonymity.
Additionally, the study did not explore preferences at local or community levels, where people’s views on diversity might vary more widely. Future research could compare national ideals with attitudes about diversity in neighborhoods, schools, or workplaces, and explore how different populations respond to tradeoffs between inclusion and social cohesion.
Despite these caveats, the study offers a strong counterpoint to the perception that Americans are increasingly drawn to ethnonationalist ideals. While those voices are real and sometimes loud, they do not represent the majority. Instead, the findings suggest that a multicultural vision of America remains firmly woven into how most citizens think about their country’s future.
“My collaborators and I also hope this research is generative of new investigations into this topic,” Power said. “It is unclear, for instance, whether the patterns identified in this study are stable or change over time. A replication of this survey at a later time point would be revealing. We also do not know how our results compare to other Western liberal democracies. How, for example, do people in Ireland, Denmark, the U.K., Canada, and Australia, perceive the current demographic makeup of their nations and what are their ideal demography judgments for the future composition of their countries?”
“We also do not know what people have in mind when they make their judgments about the desired future composition of their nations. Qualitative inquiry would shed further light on the cultural and moral reasoning underlying these preferences for the future. I conceptualize this study as being part of a broader intellectual project which is concerned with investigating the scopes, limits, and possibilities for accommodating cultural diversity in Western liberal democracies.”
The study, “Is multiculturalism as American as apple pie? A survey of attitudes toward ethnic and religious diversity in the United States,” was authored by Séamus A. Power, Crystal Shackleford, Friedolin Merhout, and Richard A. Shweder.
