Identity Salience, Identity Acceptance, and Racial Policy Attitudes: American National Identity as a Uniting Force

John E. Transue

American Journal of Political Science, 2007, vol. 51, issue 1, 78-91

Abstract: Political science has paid a great deal of attention to sources of intergroup conflict, but the discipline has focused less on forces that bring people together and lead them to transcend group boundaries. This study presents evidence that attachment to a shared superordinate identity can improve intergroup relations by reducing the social distance between people of different racial groups. Using a survey experiment, this research shows that making a superordinate identity salient increased support for a tax increase. The effects of the identity salience treatment are compared to a policy particularism treatment in terms of effect size and their interaction with each other. The size and direction of the identity salience effect is affected by the degree of respondents' acceptance of the proffered identity. Implications for social identity theory, racial policy attitudes, and American national identity are discussed.

Date: 2007
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00238.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:amposc:v:51:y:2007:i:1:p:78-91

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Journal of Political Science from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().