Justin Sandefur

Is the finding of greater interest in the welfare of GS, but no more support for initiatives in the US, counter-intuitive? Maybe if you spend 2 years & talk to folks, you notice that happiness is local.

I dunno. @leecrawfurd, any qualitative insights from your survey?

It was counter-intuitive to me, I've spent a lot of time in poor countries talking to folks who are very keen to get more money and/or find a way to move to a rich country

I learned in my @BYU marketing class that foreign serving missionaries have higher rates of racial bias after they serve missions.

What does ‘racial bias’ mean?

The return missionaries had a higher tendency to discriminate against those ethnicities they were called to serve upon returning from their missions. Wish I had a citation - this was from a Qualtrics researcher presenting in our marketing class.

Not terribly surprising, anecdotally. A lot of people I know who went to South America end up adopting local racist views.

Are white Mormons generally more in favor of immigration than other white Evangelicals? Anecdotally they seem to be.

I have the same impression. @darinself might know

I don't know how common it is but I've heard a couple times the interpretation of various prophecies about 'converting the nations' being fulfilled not just by missionary work in those nations but by members of all nations coming the the US (and becoming LDS of course)

I thought I saw survey data backing up that Mormons in general are more supportive of immigration. We have a historical legacy of identifying with refugees and our elites certainly are pro-immigration

For example look at the Utah compact. It was driven largely by LDS leadership and in the wake of Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric/actions leadership have been somewhat outspoken.

"Mormonism and American Politics"by David E. Campbell, Christopher F. Karpowitz, and J. Quin Monson finds that Mormons are far more likely than evangelicals to support immigration

IMO depends on reasons for going to developing countries in the first place. Broadly speaking, Peace Corps volunteers go to learn and help build infrastructure, etc...already interested in development. Missionaries go to "save souls" and push their religion. I admit I'm biased.

That’s the point of this paper. What you are describing would be “self selection bias” but since Mormons don’t self select you eliminate that problem.