“How European am I?”: Prejudice Expression and the Presentation of Social Identity

Abstract

We propose that the expression of prejudice may be used for publicly validating a social identity. This assumption was investigated in a Greek political context. Prejudice toward the Turks is strongly associated to Greek identity but is contrary to the norms of tolerance associated with European identity. Hence, expressing this attitude in front of a European audience may conflict with many Greeks' desire to be viewed as fully European by other members of the European Union. It was therefore predicted that Greeks who strongly identified with Europe would refrain from publicly expressing negative attitudes toward the Turks when they addressed prototypical Europeans, but not when their answers were private or when they addressed other Greeks. In order to test this hypothesis, the impact of personal identifiability, identification with Europe and the audience's group membership (western European, Greek) on the expression of prejudice toward the Turks was examined among Greek students (n =118). Results were generally consistent with predictions. Unexpectedly, however, identification with Europe was positively related to the expression of prejudice when participants expected to be identifiable to a Greek audience.