Every Heart Beats True, for the Red, White, and Blue: National Identity Predicts Voter Support

Abstract

In two studies conducted during the 2012 U.S. presidential election, we sought to determine whether the relative ascription of the American identity to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney was distinct from attitudinal responses and from associations about racial categories. We also tested the degree to which these associations accounted for voter support. In both studies, participants completed a series of Implicit Association Tests and reported their intention to vote for and their willingness to support these candidates. In contrast to implicit associations about racial categories (Black vs. White), Obama was implicitly seen as more American and elicited a more favorable implicit evaluation than Romney (Study 1). At the same time, these effects were reduced when candidates were categorized based on their racial (rather than personal) identity (Study 2). Implicit associations about the candidates (but not racial categories) accounted for intention to vote for them and relative willingness to support them over and above the effect of political orientation (Studies 1 & 2). These findings suggest that the implicit ascription of a national identity is an important facet of presidential elections. for their help with data collection, and members of the Intergroup Relations (SDSU) and the Stereotyping and Intergroup Prejudice (CSUN) Laboratories for their useful feedback.

“American = English Speaker” Before “American = White”: The Development of Children's Reasoning About Nationality

“…The findings of the present research suggest that children make reliable predictions about the relation between nationality and social categories early in life, but the responses of older children in this study suggest that thinking about nationality undergoes revision and may continue to do so through adolescence and adulthood (see Phinney, , ; Phinney & Tarver, ). For instance, contentious political contexts may subtly influence adults’ political attitudes and the way people conceive of the meaning of nationality (Carter, Ferguson, & Hassin, ; Devos & Ma, ), but these beliefs may shift over time and be malleable based on the current political climate, such as divisive presidential campaigns compared to nonelection years (Ferguson, Carter, & Hassin, ; Ma & Devos, ). These findings raise interesting questions about the importance of context and the potential malleability of reasoning about nationality across the life span.…”

Shades of American Identity: Implicit Relations between Ethnic and National Identities

“…This effect was attenuated when the politicians were categorized based on their personal identity or other relevant identities (e.g., gender, age, or political affiliation). In the context of the 2012 US presidential election, the picture changed in the sense that overall, Barack Obama was implicitly seen as more American than Mitt Romney, but highlighting racial identities still undermined the automatic association between the national identity and President Obama (Ma & Devos, ). In sum, data collected during the last two US presidential elections confirmed the findings of studies focusing on two specific actresses (Lucy Liu and Kate Winslet; Devos & Ma, ).…”

“…There is now growing evidence that voting behavior or intentions are linked to implicit evaluations of political candidates or racial groups (Devos, ; Nosek, Graham, & Hawkins, ). In both 2008 and 2012, the extent to which the American identity was implicitly linked to candidates to the nation's highest office predicted behavioral intentions toward them (Devos & Ma, ; Ma & Devos, ; Sheets, Domke, & Greenwald, ). Controlling for the effect of political orientation, individuals who had relative difficulty associating the American identity with Barack Obama were those who were less likely to vote for him or to actively support him rather than his opponent.…”

The Chicago face database: A free stimulus set of faces and norming data

“…Researchers may elect to take their own photographs of targets and process those images in-house (e.g., Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002), identify usable targets from archives, such as yearbooks (e.g., Blair, Judd, & Fallman, 2004), find images from online or print sources (e.g., BaronCohen et al, 1997), create computer-generated faces (e.g., Todorov, Pakrashi, & Oosterhof, 2009), or use stimuli from published databases, such as NimStim or Project Implicit (e.g., Ma & Devos, 2013;McConnell & Leibold, 2001). The amount of effort required to gather, standardize, and pre-test pictorial stimuli can be daunting.…”