Ethnic identity as a moderator of ingroup bias

Abstract

ETHNIC IDENTITY AS A MODERATOR OF INGROUP BIAS by Katie Stokes-Guinan This thesis replicated and extended work by Perdue, Dovidio, Gurtman, and Tyler (1990) by priming 132 Asian, Hispanic, and White participants with ingroup and outgroup designators outside of conscious awareness before asking them to make judgments about positive and negative trait words. While bias patterns were similar for participants from all three ethnic groups, they were different among individuals with high and low scores on a measure of ethnic identity (the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure by Phinney, 1992). Specifically, participants with high ethnic identity scores demonstrated ingroup bias along ethnic lines, while participants with low ethnic identity scores did not. Results partially support social identity theory, since participants that identified more with their ethnic groups also demonstrated more ingroup bias.