When it comes to being divisive, it doesn’t get more literal than a wall. Walls exist as a means of separation, creating a sense of security by keeping something—or more typically someone—out. Noting the strong reactions that many people have toward border walls, Penn researchers Diana Mutz and Beth Simmons wondered if walls carried a more universal meaning in the human mind, regardless of a person’s nationality. And as it turns out, they do—with real implications for international influence and soft power.

Dr. Mutz, the Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science and Communication and director of the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics at Annenberg and the department of political science in SAS, was interested in the political psychology of distance and separation. Dr. Simmons, a Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor with appointments at SAS and Penn Carey Law School and a secondary appointment at the Wharton School, had an ongoing project involving the consequences of increased national border infrastructure around the world. 

These related research interests converged as Drs. Mutz and Simmons developed an experiment to assess how border walls influence the way that individuals regard a foreign country—and crucially, in a way that steers clear of highly polarized political feelings about border policies where they live. 

Their findings, “The psychology of separation: border walls, soft power, and international neighborliness,” were recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). The study revealed that the presence of walls lowered participants’ evaluations of the bordering countries, and implied hostile international relationships.

The consistent negative impressions that participants had of countries with border infrastructure, the co-authors say, are important for policymakers to bear in mind. These findings speak directly to the potential impact of border security policies on a country’s “soft power” – the kind of influence, both on leaders and the public, that a country gains when seen favorably by those in other countries. Soft power is determined by foreign perceptions of the attractiveness of a society’s culture, foreign policies, and values.

Working with a team of graduate students, the co-authors assembled found footage from the internet on Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, two countries that they felt respondents were likely to know very little about. Drs. Mutz and Simmons wanted participants to be unfamiliar with the locations involved, so their judgments wouldn’t be swayed by prior knowledge of that country’s reputation.

With the help of Waldo Aguirre and Anna Gamarnik from Annenberg’s IT department, they created a short documentary about Tajikistan’s culture and history. Respondents were shown one of three versions of the film, then asked to rate their impressions of the countries depicted. In one version, the narrator mentions that Tajikistan shares a border with Kyrgyzstan, shown as a valley between two mountains. In another version, the video refers to a “border wall” and an image of a wall is presented. The third version also shows a wall, and explicitly mentions that neighboring Kyrgyzstan originally built it.

In addition to participants having negative perceptions of countries with border walls, the results showed that the government of the country responsible for erecting the wall was regarded especially unfavorably. And while walls increased perceptions of a country’s border security, it lowered respondents’ perceived security of the people who live there.

As the co-authors note, these reactions were consistent regardless of participants’ political views, the political contexts of their home countries, and their distance from an international border.

Adapted from an Annenberg School for Communication news release published on January 28, 2022.