Abstract
Historical representation of collective identity offer means of influencing the extent to which group members engage in activities in line with the collective interests of their group vs. their own individual interests. This research tested the effect of different historical representations of the African people on Africans' perceptions of African social identity and engagement in identity management strategies across two studies. In Study 1 (N = 162), we tested the effect of two historical representations: positive (prestigious precolonial African history and resistance to the colonial power) and negative (inhumane practices of precolonial Africans). In Study 2 (N = 431), we tested the effect of two historical representations: positive (prestigious precolonial African history) and negative factual (inhuman practices of precolonial Africans) while also making salient the ubiquitous historical representation of the African people (negative colonial-perspective) across all history conditions. We predicted that positive (vs. negative) historical representation would lead to more positive perceptions of African identity, which in turn would predict more collectively-oriented identity management strategies. Altogether, results provided no support for these predictions. We highlight methodological (and by extension theoretical) features-such as, psychological reactance and outgroup audience effect-which may have limited the effect of the manipulations to help inform the interpretation of the null findings obtained. We conclude by discussing other limitations and the theoretical implications of our work, before pointing out various avenues for future research to help us better test, and understand, the role of historical representation in the African context.
Highlights
‘The tragedy of Africa is that the African has not fully entered into history
We report two experimental studies with African samples in which we tested the effects of historical representations of African people on perceptions of African identity and identity management strategies
Bringing the above strands together, we suggest that positive historical representations of a group may bring about positive perceptions of a social identity, which predict Identity management strategies (IMS) that aim to bring about collective improvement for the group as a whole, such as (1) engaging in social change strategies such as collective political action; and (2) adopting social creativity strategies that will improve the outcome of the group, for example, new comparison dimensions, new comparison groups, and revaluation of comparison dimension
Summary
‘The tragedy of Africa is that the African has not fully entered into history. The African peasant, who for thousands of years have lived according to the seasons, whose life ideal was to be in harmony with nature, only knew the eternal renewal of time, rhythmed by the endless repetition of the same gestures and the same words. In this imaginary world where everything starts over and over again there is no place for human adventure or for the idea of progress’ [1] [p. In this imaginary world where everything starts over and over again there is no place for human adventure or for the idea of progress’ [1] [p. 3]
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