Taiwan is one of the most preferred destinations for foreign immigrant workers and marriage immigrants. In January 2021, the number of marriage immigrants was 560,617, a number representing 2.38% of Taiwan’s population. Of them, 368,237 spouses were from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau, and they accounted for 65.68% of marriage immigrants; this number was followed by that for Vietnamese spouses, who accounted for 19.60% of marriage immigrants (Ministry of the Interior National Immigration Agency Republic of China, Taiwan, 2021. In an earlier era, most marriage immigrants in Taiwan were women, who were referred to as “foreign brides” from underdeveloped Asian countries. Their marriages were often simplistically understood as “mercenary marriages” (Hsia, 2001), reflecting the stereotype and prejudice of some Taiwanese people toward marriage immigrants.

In the patrilineal tradition of Chinese society, having a daughter-in-law had a stronger impact on the family than having a daughter get married. The attitude of parents toward their sons marrying foreign women (including women from mainland China) indicates not only the acceptance level of the families but also the perspectives of society. Additionally, newlywed brides are expected to adapt to their new environment (Yi & Chang, 2006).

Some studies have investigated the attitude of Taiwanese people toward marriage immigrant women. The proportion of people having an accepting toward marriage immigrants from mainland China and Southeast Asian countries considerably increased between 2004 and 2014 (Chen & Wu, 2017).

According to the aforementioned studies, the acceptance of new immigrant women has increased in Taiwan, mostly because of social contact with and appreciation of the value of said women (Chen & Wu, 2017). A few studies have explored whether Taiwanese people have prejudices toward or stereotypes of new immigrant women, whether differences in social status between people have decreased, and whether Taiwanese people have become increasingly accepting of people from various cultures; the results of these studies have revealed various findings. A study that recruited college students (Kim et al., 2018) revealed that the participants had relatively positive stereotypes toward new immigrant women but their views were linked to the nationality of the immigrants. For example, they had a positive perception of new immigrant residents from Japan and Korea, but their perspective regarding those from Southeast Asian countries and mainland China was negative. A study titled “Out of Place: The Double Absence of Vietnam Marriage Immigrants” (Kung, 2019, p.69) reported “linguistic challenges, commercialized marriage as a symbolic violence, and negative transnationalism from the suffering experience of Vietnam women, including lonely, intimate discontents, uncivil attention, and betrayal.” These findings suggest that the acceptance of marriage immigrants in Taiwan should be further explored.

This study explored the multicultural acceptance, related factors, and the cognitive gap between new immigrants and college students. The causes of prejudice, stereotypes, and social distance among college students were investigated to determine whether people really accept new immigrants. Hagendoorn and Kleinpenning (1991) proposed that people have different stereotypes toward ethnic minorities under different circumstances and these differences affect the social distance from ethnic minorities. They also reported that the stereotypes of people toward certain groups or members were related to prejudice to some extent, regardless of the measuring methods (Damigella & Licciardello, 2014). Choi et al. (2017) suggested the possibility of a direct correlation between stereotypes and social distancing. Moreover, prejudice is notably implicit toward certain ethnic groups that are conceptualized on the basis of several stereotypes—for example, African Americans.

Overall, stereotyping is a basic cognitive attitude that entails beliefs regarding a certain social group and its members, and prejudice is a negative emotional attitude. Stereotypes and prejudice are correlated with each other and affect the social distance from ethnic minorities (Xue, 2017). Moreover, a certain stereotype toward certain groups and their members would also involve prejudice (Evans & Need, 2002).

Park and Lee (2013) reported that the major factors influencing multicultural acceptance include self-respect, social support, national consciousness, and social distance, with social distance having the most notable influence. They found that the lower the social distance is, the higher the multicultural acceptance is. Kim and Ahn (2014) demonstrated that stereotypes and prejudice are the major factors affecting the multicultural acceptance of university students toward immigrant workers from Southeast Asian countries. Jeong (2014) used social population variables (including gender, grade, cross-cultural friendship), contact experience, and social distance as variables and discovered that stereotypes and prejudice affect social distance, which further influences multicultural acceptance. Contact experience can include formal (multicultural course in school) or informal (community activity, media, etc.) contact. Kao (2014) reported that people could eliminate certain prejudices and discrimination toward Chinese immigrants and increase multicultural acceptance through introspection and discussion, learning to respect and appreciate the differences in culture. Kim et al. (2018) inferred that compared with students who did not have any experience abroad, those with such experience possessed more cross-cultural communication skills. Moreover, students with cross-cultural contact experience are less likely to exhibit prejudices or stereotypes or to keep a wary social distance.

This study adopted the questionnaire survey method to obtain research data on college students and new immigrants in Kinmen. Two questionnaires were used: the first questionnaire was used to sample 400 college students and 269 new immigrants, and the second questionnaire was used to confirm the factors (reasons, impressions, and prejudices) that influence the willingness (most willing or least willing) of college students to intermarry with individuals of other nationalities.

This study analyzed various data and tested the research hypothesis through frequency distribution, Pearson correlation, reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. In addition, a Likert 5-point scale was employed to measure the variables. The scale comprised the following five degrees: “Strongly disagree,” “Disagree,” “Neither Agree or Disagree,” “Agree,” and “Strongly agree.” The variable scores represented the respondents’ stereotypes, prejudices, contact experience, perception of social distance, and multicultural acceptance. For the variables, higher scores corresponded to stronger recognition of the assessment items.

The results indicated that college students’ overall stereotype toward new immigrants is positive. Multicultural acceptance of new immigrants is also considerably high among college students. Moreover, the perceptions of most variables notably differed among the students, except for the variable of prejudice. The nationalities that the college students were most willing to intermarry with were Japanese, Korean, American (USA), Australian, and European, with the general reason being “higher living standard.” The students were least willing to marry with Southeast Asian and mainland Chinese individuals. The major reasons for less willingness to marry those from Southeast Asian countries were the differences in living habits and culture and lower living standard. The key reasons for the unwillingness to intermarry with mainland Chinese individuals were political consciousness, inability to bring benefits to the respondent or their family, and poor political relations between the two sides of the Strait. Therefore, the findings of this study revealed reasons for the low willingness to intermarry. Overall, the first questionnaire revealed the cognitive attitude of college students toward the research variables and the differences in attitude between college students and new immigrants; the second questionnaire confirmed the reasons, stereotypes, and prejudices that influence the willingness (most willing or least willing) of college students to marry individuals of other nationalities.

Based on the findings of Kim et al. (2018) and Kao (2018), this study applied more rigorous research methods to further explore the cognitive differences between college students and new immigrants due to prejudice, stereotypes, social distance, and multicultural acceptance. In addition, through in-depth interviews with the participants and two questionnaire surveys, multiple demographic variables and analytic methods were applied to discern the reasons for cognitive differences between college students and new immigrants.