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Abstract
Collective self-esteem represents a potentially useful construct for understanding intergroup relations in multiethnic societies, but current literature reflects a gap in cross-cultural comparisons of this concept. This study was designed to compare expression of collective self-esteem and its relation to perception of self and others across two distinct cultural groups. Collective self-esteem, personal self-esteem and perception of racism were measured in two groups of 114 Cambodian immigrants and 94 Francophone Quebecois, each composed of adolescents and their parents. The magnitude of collective self-esteem, as well as its relation with personal self-esteem and perception of racism differed across groups. Further analyses highlighted cultural factors in the function and impact of collective self-esteem, while suggesting that cultural characteristics may change rapidly when groups experience considerable modifications in their social identity because of intergenerational shifts and because of minority-majority tensions.
Highlights
Human and social sciences are increasingly occupied with passionate discussions of who, what, and how the human subject ‘is’, with regard to the sociocultural environment that holds the person and shapes ‘identity’
Social identity theory was developed by Henry Tajfel (Tajfel& Turner, 1979; Tajfel, 1981) to address the growing need for more accurate models of psychological dynamics involved in the collective-individual relationship
Collective self-esteem was rapidly put to use by social psychology researchers as a useful construct for investigating the psychological impact and dimensions of group membership
Summary
Human and social sciences are increasingly occupied with passionate discussions of who, what, and how the human subject ‘is’, with regard to the sociocultural environment that holds the person and shapes ‘identity’ (see e.g. Marsella, DeVos, & Hsu, 1985; Markus &Wurf, 1987; Markus & Herzog, 1991; Porter and Washington, 1993; Whittaker, 1993; Banaji and Prentice, 1994; Ashmore and Jussim, 1997 for literature reviews in different areas). Despite significant early findings that indicated ethnic or cultural groups can have distinctly different levels of collective self-esteem Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine, and Broadnaz, 1994), few studies addressed the potentially important implications associated with cross-cultural differences in magnitude or effects of collective self-esteem as a culture-specific characteristic Rahimi and Fisher (2002) for example, reported a strong correlation between collective, but not personal, self-esteem, and construal of racism Despite such empirical distinction between collective and personal self-esteem, findings do indicate the possibility of parallel patterns existing in the dynamics ruling the effects and implications of the two constructs. This study was conceived to compare collective self-esteem and its psychological implications across two cultural groups: Francophone Quebecois and Cambodian refugees. Rousseau and colleagues (2000) reported an overview of the emotional and psychological aspects of the lives of young members of Cambodian refugee communities in Quebec, providing a distinct account of the cultural differences between the two populations. Donnely (1989) and Hein (1995) studied the challenges and experiences arising from
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