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

Abstract

The issue of ethnic diversity and national identity in an immigrant nation such as the USA is a recurrent topic of debate. We review and integrate research examining the extent to which the American identity is implicitly granted or denied to members of different ethnic groups. Consistently, European Americans are implicitly conceived of as being more American than African, Asian, Latino, and even Native Americans. This implicit American = White effect emerges when explicit knowledge or perceptions point in the opposite direction. The propensity to deny the American identity to members of ethnic minorities is particularly pronounced when targets (individuals or groups) are construed through the lenses of ethnic identities. Implicit ethnic–national associations fluctuate as a function of perceivers’ ethnic identity and political orientation, but also contextual or situational factors. The tendency to equate being American with being White accounts for the strength of national identification (among European Americans) and behavioral responses including hiring recommendations and voting intentions. The robust propensity to deny the American identity to ethnic minority groups reflects an exclusionary national identity.

Indian = Hindu? The Development of Nationalist Attitudes Among Hindu and Muslim Children in India

“…We were particularly interested in whether Muslim children in our sample, like their Devos & Banaji, 2005), as well as evidence that minority individuals experience internal conflicts that lead them to de-identify either with their national or group identity (Rodriguez et al, 2010;Sidanuis et al, 1997), with negative consequences for their wellbeing and other outcomes. However, the fact that Muslim children in our study maintained strong religious and national identities aligns with other evidence that members of minority groups sometimes find ways around identity conflicts-that they may be able to buffer their personal identities, even when they know that their group is stereotyped or stigmatized (Devos & Mohamed, 2014). Further, that the Muslim children in our sample exhibited a strong ingroup bias replicates previous findings from this population (Dunham et al, 2014), and contrasts with previous reports that children from minority groups often fail to show an ingroup bias and sometimes even show a bias in favor of the majority outgroup (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004;Newheiser, Dunham, Merrill, Hoosain, & Olson, 2014;Newheiser & Olson, 2012).…”

“…Compared to Hindu children, Muslim children may be less exposed to culturally mediated messages that support an Indian = Hindu association, and may receive messages that contest this association (e.g., from their family and community associations may be more sensitive to cognitive appraisal. However, there is also evidence that power hierarchies can shape implicit religious national associations, which in turn reinforce those hierarchies (Devos & Mohamed, 2014).…”

Economic Americanness and defensive inclusion: social location and young citizens’ conceptions of national identity

“…Beyond interview-and survey-based approaches, social psychologists show that even those who express an understanding of Americanness as inclusive may unconsciously equate being American with being white (Devos and Mohamed 2014). It may be the case, then, that Ivy League respondents hold unconscious associations that exclude immigrants and their children from A key methodological lesson, then, is the need for a more engaged conversation between the different methodological approaches to studying national identity.…”

Benefiting from Diversity: How Groups’ Coordinating Mechanisms Affect Leadership Opportunities for Marginalized Individuals

“…Effects of perceived prototypically may even, in some contexts, be automatic. Yogeeswaran and Dasgupta () found that participants’ implicit beliefs that the prototypical American is White (indexed by an Implicit Association Test; Devos & Mohamed, ) negatively predicted evaluation of an immigration policy idea offered by an Asian American compared to a White American policymaker, and this effect was mediated by differences in perceived loyalty to America. Similarly, research on minority influence has found that “double minorities”—for example, individuals who hold a minority opinion and also belong to a minority social category—exert less influence because they are viewed as self‐interested and not truly dedicated to the group's interests when they initiate change efforts (e.g., Maass & Clark, ).…”