Ethnic Outgroup Research Articles

Longitudinal associations between parental psychological control and adolescents' intergroup attitudes to prosocial behaviors towards ethnic outgroups.

While a substantial body of existing literature has examined the negative effects of parental psychological control on adolescents' prosocial behaviors, there is a noticeable gap in whether parental psychological control affects prosocial behaviors towards ethnic outgroup members. This three-wave longitudinal study investigated whether similar relations can be observed between parental psychological control and prosocial behaviors targeted at ethnic outgroup persons, and whether these relations are mediated by adolescents' intergroup attitudes. Participants were 412 European American adolescents (42% girls; Mage = 15.63 years at Time 1) and their primary caregivers (52% mothers) residing in the United States. They completed online questionnaires. Parents completed a measure of parental psychological control at Time 1. Adolescents completed measures of intergroup attitudes, public, and altruistic outgroup prosocial behavior at all three time points (T1, T2, T3), each approximately 8 months apart. The retention rate was 38.1% (N = 157; 44% girls) at Time 3. Path analyses revealed a direct negative link between parental psychological control and altruistic prosocial behavior towards ethnic outgroup persons but a direct positive association to public prosocial behavior towards outgroup persons. Importantly, parental psychological control was indirectly related to adolescents' prosocial behavior towards ethnic outgroup persons, via its effect on their intergroup attitudes. The findings underscore how parental psychological control and adolescents' intergroup attitudes contribute to shaping prosocial behaviors towards ethnic outgroups.

Cultural Tightness-Looseness and Individual Differences in Non-Normativeness Predict Stigmatization of Out-Groups: A Multilevel Cross-Cultural Study

Although a large body of research has focused on the determinants of stigma, multilevel approaches that can identify both micro- and macro-level influences are rarely employed. We adopted a multilevel perspective with data from 174,325 participants from 80 countries in two waves—Wave 5 (Study 1) and Wave 6 (Study 2) of the World Values Survey. We examined how country-level normative tightness-looseness and individual-level non-normativeness relate to stigma toward racial and ethnic out-groups and groups deviating from social standards. Preregistered analyses showed that for both waves individuals in normatively tighter (vs. looser) societies exhibited more stigma generally. Also, for both waves, individuals higher in non-normativeness demonstrated a greater level of stigma toward members of immigrant, racial, or ethnic out-groups while exhibiting a lower level of stigma toward groups deviating from social standards. The current work thus reveals how characteristics of both individuals and culture jointly affect stigma.

Intergroup ethnocentrism and social media: evidence from three Western democracies

ABSTRACT Mass media have long been known to be deeply linked to ethnocentrism and its consequences. Attitudes towards ethnic outgroups are shaped by news agendas, framing, and tone at least as much or more than by the realities of immigration. By contrast, comparatively little is known about social media and interethnic contact. Unlike mass news, the interactive features of social media use can combine information with a direct interethnic contact. This creates an online public sphere which has the potential of being ethnically more diverse than the offline public sphere. By reviewing and connecting the literature on intergroup contact and online political communication, the given study attempts to connect the optimal intergroup contact theory by Gordon Allport to the realities and affordances of social media. The empirical analysis relies on a three-country survey with 4532 respondents in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Mindful of the endogeneity problem in our cross-cutting data, we perform propensity score matching and find that spending more time on X (formerly Twitter) is correlated with lower intergroup ethnocentrism under randomized conditions. No such effect was found for Facebook. We also find that people who discuss politics with those that have different ethnicity or race via social media (or offline) are less ethnocentric.

Do They Look the Same Unless They Are Angry? Investigating the Other-Race Effect in the Presence of Angry Expressions

Ethnic out-group members are disproportionately more often the victim of misidentifications. The so-called other-race effect (ORE), the tendency to better remember faces of individuals belonging to one’s own ethnic in-group than faces belonging to an ethnic out-group, has been identified as one causal ingredient in such tragic incidents. Investigating an important aspect for the ORE—that is, emotional expression—the seminal study by Ackerman and colleagues (2006) found that White participants remembered neutral White faces better than neutral Black faces, but crucially, Black angry faces were better remembered than White angry faces (i.e., a reversed ORE). In the current study, we sought to replicate this study and directly tackle the potential causes for different results with later work. Three hundred ninety-six adult White U.S. citizens completed our study in which we manipulated the kind of employed stimuli (as in the original study vs. more standardized ones) whether participants knew of the recognition task already at the encoding phase. Additionally, participants were asked about the unusualness of the presented faces. We were able to replicate results from the Ackerman et al. (2006) study with the original stimuli but not with more standardized stimuli.

Overcoming Resource Competition Among Co-Ethnics: Elites, Endorsements, and Multiracial Support for Urban Distributive Policies

When can we expect multiple racial groups to find common ground in the face of potentially unequal distributive urban policies? While we understand a great deal about the role of elites in inter-ethnic coalition building, we know less about the conditions under which cooperative behavior among their co-ethnic voters is more likely. Research has found that multiracial coalitions are critical to the political incorporation of racial/ethnic minority group interests at the local level but conflict between minority groups persists due to both real and perceived competition for resources. In this paper, we argue that elite co-ethnic endorsements can increase co-ethnic voters' support for urban distributive policies that disproportionately benefit outgroups over one’s own ingroup. We test our theory using a survey experiment from a representative sample of more than 1800 Los Angeles County voters. We find that respondents are less likely to support policy proposals that exclusively target benefits toward ethnic outgroups compared to when their ethnic ingroup exclusively benefits from an identical proposal. But we also find that the presence of co-ethnic endorsements can increase support for proposals that benefit an ethnic outgroup. We find this effect among Black, Latino, and Asian Americans in our sample.

Group Identity and Inter-Ethnic Relations in the Western Niger Delta of Nigeria

Abstract In this paper, the author paints the socio-political canvass that coloured the motif of colonial and post-colonial political arrangement that characterised the western Niger Delta of Nigeria. This paper underscores the Isoko minority group’s struggle for identity as a distinct ethnic group from their Urhobo neighbour in post-colonial times. It is the aim of this work to try to bring light on the history of minority group’s struggle for establishing their own identity and political domain within the framework of sub-nationalism in the Nigerian state using the appropriate theoretical frameworks. The study deployed the historical and analytical methods, with primary and secondary sources to achieve its aim. The paper shows that the identity of the Isoko Nationalism was not clearly established, until after 1963 and even as late as the period of the Nigerian Civil War, the separate identity of the Isoko ethnic group was not clearly established in some circles, until crude oil economy brought them to the limelight after the end of the Nigerian civil war. The author deposes that to appreciate ethnic relations across time and space in relation to contemporary political circumstances, from the perspective of both majority and minority status and in relation to different ethnic out-groups. Finally, the paper shows that understanding the patterns of intergroup relations as exemplified by the Isoko and their neighbours in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria is a necessary prelude to the appreciation of the phenomena in the trajectory of developments that had serious implications on the evolution and trend of the Isoko as an identifiable distinct ethnic group.

Moral elevation mitigates dehumanization of ethnic outgroups

The pervasive social bias of perceiving outgroup members as less than human can contribute to discrimination and intergroup harm. Given the strong influence of our emotional states on how we perceive others, we theorized that pro-social emotions may offer a route to ameliorating ethnic outgroup dehumanization. In particular, witnessing exemplary moral acts elicits self-transcending and pro-social affective reactions referred to as moral elevation. In two experiments (Ntot =714), we examined the effect of induced moral elevation on ethnic outgroup dehumanization, relative to effects of a neutral baseline and a positive affect control condition. Dehumanization was assessed via endorsements of animalistic traits attributed to members of commonly dehumanized outgroups in the US, including Muslims and African-Americans. Across both studies, moral elevation significantly reduced dehumanization, whereas positive affect alone did not. Furthermore, Study 2 showed that the effect of moral elevation on dehumanization was mediated by a sense of superordinate identity (i.e., shared humanity). Taken together, these findings point to the power of witnessing moral acts for helping us fully recognize the humanity of others.

Racism is not about “race”

Unfamiliar individuals are viewed with suspicion across the entire animal kingdom. This makes evolutionary sense, as outsiders may carry unfamiliar pathogens against which one has not yet developed immune defenses. In humans, the unfamiliar-pathogens idea has been dismissed on the grounds that people do not shun microbe-sharing contact with ethnic outgroups (other “races”) more than they do with ingroups. Reanalyzing the same public data on which such claims are based—6500 participants from China, India, USA, and UK—here I show that (1) people do behave as though the parasites of unfamiliar individuals were more dangerous, and (2) strangers’ ethnicity matters when, and only when, it is a proxy for unfamiliarity. This implies that racism could be tamed by acquainting our children with fellow humans of all shapes and colors, so that everyone in the world looks like family.

Replicating the effects of Facebook deactivation in an ethnically polarized setting

The question of how social media usage impacts societal polarization continues to generate great interest among both the research community and broader public. Nevertheless, there are still very few rigorous empirical studies of the causal impact of social media usage on polarization. To explore this question, we replicate the only published study to date that tests the effects of social media cessation on interethnic attitudes (Asimovic et al., 2021). In a study situated in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the authors found that deactivating from Facebook for a week around genocide commemoration in Bosnia and Herzegovina had a negative effect on users’ attitudes toward ethnic outgroups, with the negative effect driven by users with more ethnically homogenous offline networks. Does this finding extend to other settings? In a pre-registered replication study, we implement the same research design in a different ethnically polarized setting: Cyprus. We are not able to replicate the main effect found in Asimovic et al. (2021): in Cyprus, we cannot reject the null hypothesis of no effect. We do, however, find a significant interaction between the heterogeneity of users’ offline networks and the deactivation treatment within our 2021 subsample, consistent with the pattern from Bosnia and Herzegovina. We also find support for recent findings (Allcott et al., 2020; Asimovic et al., 2021) that Facebook deactivation leads to a reduction in anxiety levels and suggestive evidence of a reduction in knowledge of current news, though the latter is again limited to our 2021 subsample.

Instrumentally Inclusive: The Political Psychology of Homonationalism

Can nativist attitudes condition support for LGBT+ rights? The sustained advance in pro-LGBT+ attitudes in the West often contrasts with the greening of anti-immigrant sentiment propagated by nativist supply-side actors. We argue that these parallel trends are causally connected, theorizing that exposure to sexually conservative ethnic out-groups can provoke an instrumental increase in LGBT+ inclusion, particularly among those hostile toward immigration. Leveraging experiments in Britain and Spain, we provide causal evidence that citizens strategically liberalize their levels of support for LGBT+ rights when opponents of these measures are from the ethnic out-group. In a context where sexuality-based liberalism is nationalized, increasing tolerance toward LGBT+ citizens is driven by a desire among nativist citizens to socially disidentify from those out-groups perceived as inimical to these nationalized norms. Our analyses provide a critical interpretation of positive trends in LGBT+ tolerance with instrumental liberalism masking lower rates of genuine shifts in LGBT+ inclusion.

Motivations to respond without prejudice and ethnic outgroup attitudes in late childhood: Change and stability during a single school year.

This longitudinal study (three waves across a school year) investigated the links between children's motivations to respond without prejudice and their ethnic outgroup attitudes at the between-person level (means and changes over time) and the within-person level (time-specific fluctuations). Participants were 945 ethnic majority students (MageW1 = 9.86 years, SD = 1.21; 471 girls) from 51 grade 3-6 classrooms in the Netherlands. Children reported (increasingly) more positive outgroup attitudes when their internal motivation was structurally high (between-person effects) and temporarily high (within-person effect), and less positive attitudes when their external motivation was structurally and temporarily high. The between-person effects were independent of the ethnic composition and the antiprejudice climate of the classroom. These findings may help in developing interventions aimed at reducing prejudice in late childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of absolute levels of neighbourhood ethnic diversity vs. changes in neighbourhood diversity on prejudice: Moderation by individual differences in personality

This paper examines drivers of prejudicial attitudes among adults in the UK, focusing on the interaction between ethnic out-group size and personality traits. Leveraging data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS), we use two survey waves carried out in 2000 and 2008, just before and after the EU enlargement policy that drove a wave of immigration in the UK. We test the extent to which personality traits moderate the relationship between both absolute levels and changes in ethnic diversity at the local level, respectively, and prejudice. Key findings suggest that personality traits, in particular one's agreeableness, are important for conditioning how the proportion of non-white British in one's neighbourhood affects out-group attitudes. We observe a tendency towards polarisation in prejudicial attitudes between low-/high-agreeableness residents as their neighbourhoods become more diverse. These findings have important implications for theorising how contextual and individual characteristics jointly affect intergroup relations.

To Marry or Not to Marry? Gender and Interethnic Group Trust

AbstractWhile there has been work on whether women are more tolerant of outgroups, the ethnic politics literature has generally overlooked the role of gender in explaining interethnic trust. Whatever attention exists often focuses on the gender of the subject—that is, who is doing the trusting—with mixed results. One reason is that the object being entrusted is either not specified or assumed genderless. In this paper, we call attention to the gender of an important entrusted object in interethnic relations: children. We argue people are less willing to have their daughters—compared to their sons—marry an ethnic outgroup. Additionally, this willingness declines as the cultural distance widens. We test this using a survey experiment in Romania where we leverage the diversity in ethnicity and a gendered language structure. Our results highlight the importance of accounting for gender-based differences in studying interethnic trust.

Correction to: Effects of Brief Mindfulness Meditation and Compassion Meditation on Parochial Empathy and Prosocial Behavior Toward Ethnic Out-Group Members

Correction to: Effects of Brief Mindfulness Meditation and Compassion Meditation on Parochial Empathy and Prosocial Behavior Toward Ethnic Out-Group Members

Leaving the bike unlocked: trust discrimination in inter-ethnic encounters

Abstract Migration and ethnic diversity are said to hamper the cultivation of social trust, as native citizens may hesitate to trust ethnic out-groups and racial minorities. This article examines trust discrimination against ethno-racial minorities in everyday interactions. In a field intervention, cyclists were approached with a request for help that required them to leave their bicycles alone for a short time. I experimentally manipulated the presence and the ethnic background of a bystander positioned close to the spot where the cyclists left their bikes behind and operationalized trust as the decision to leave the bike unlocked and unattended. I found that cyclists showed significantly less trust in the presence of ethno-racial minorities compared to natives. Furthermore, trust in the wild depends on the stakes involved, as measured by the value of the bike, and one’s vulnerability to trust betrayal, as indicated by the physical stature of the cyclists. By examining a real-life indicator of trust in inter-ethnic encounters, this study advances our knowledge of the ethnic boundaries of social trust and forms of covert discrimination in anonymous and multi-ethnic societies.

Disentangling unique and consensual group norm perceptions: A study with ethnic majority students.

The influence of group norms is often tested via people's norm perceptions. Yet, people's group norm perceptions can be inaccurate, which raises the question to what extent effects of perceived norms indicate real group influence. The present study sought to obtain a better understanding of the value of group norm perceptions in social influence research. We used (longitudinal) data collected in 51 primary school classrooms in the Netherlands (Grades 3-6) and examined how majority of children's (N = 779; aged 7-13 years) perceptions of the anti-prejudice norm of their classroom peer group affected their ethnic outgroup attitudes both concurrently and over time. We divided these perceptions into a consensual and a unique part and investigated the moderating role of ingroup identification. Results showed concurrent effects of the consensual and unique norm perceptions, but a longitudinal effect of the consensual perceptions only. Classroom identification increased the concurrent effect of unique norm perceptions but decreased their longitudinal effect. Our findings indicate that norm perceptions can be important sources of actual group influence as long these perceptions are consensually shared, and that especially high identifiers rely less on their unique norm perceptions over time.

How Do Children Learn Social Categorization and Intergroup Attitudes When They Grow Up in Divided Contexts?

This paper explores how group preferences develop among children living in the post-conflict context of Kosovo and how this development shapes children’s willingness to be close to their outgroup peers among the segregated majority (ethnic Albanian) and minority (ethnic Serb) members. The study was conducted in four ethnically divided primary schools, with 220 participants aged 6–10. Children played a series of games and tasks which measured ethnic ingroup preference, preference for the Kosovar flag, and willingness to be close to ethnic outgroup children. Children in this context where a new national Kosovar identity is developing following independence display very high ethnic ingroup preferences. Kosovar Serb children showed low willingness to engage with outgroup members and remained constant with age, while Kosovar Albanian children’s willingness to engage with the outgroup was present among younger children but diminished with age. Results add to the literature on the underlying process by which identity develops among segregated majority and minority who have little or no opportunities to interact. Lack of intergroup contact hinders the development of more positive intergroup relations. To build a peaceful coexistence, programs which connect the segregated schools and facilitate intergroup contact, especially among the younger age groups, are recommended.

Exposure to Immigrants Does Not Moderate the Relationship Between Disgust Sensitivity and Opposition to Immigration

Individuals who are more motivated to avoid pathogenic infection tend to be more opposed to immigrants. Explanations for this relation emphasize lack of familiarity, with people who are more unfamiliar with ethnic outgroups being more likely to perceive them as a possible infection risk and therefore oppose immigration. Exposure to immigrants can increase familiarity with outgroup members. This suggests that exposure to immigrants attenuates the relationship between pathogen avoidance motivation and opposition to immigration. We tested this prediction in four studies using country-level ethnic fractionalization and segregation (Study 1) and proportion of immigrants at the local neighborhood level (Studies 2–4) as indicators of exposure to immigrants. Results showed that intergroup exposure did not attenuate the relation between pathogen avoidance motivation and opposition to immigration. This suggests that long-term exposure to ethnic outgroups is insufficient to make them and their customs nonthreatening for those with strong worries about pathogenic threats.

Effects of Brief Mindfulness Meditation and Compassion Meditation on Parochial Empathy and Prosocial Behavior Toward Ethnic Out-Group Members.

Relative to the tendency to empathize with and help sociocultural in-group members, there are often social and psychological barriers to responding prosocially toward out-group members. This experiment examined the roles of mindfulness instruction and compassion instruction in fostering prosocial behavior toward an ethnic out-group (non-U.S. Arabs) relative to an ethnic in-group (U.S. residents). The study also examined whether contemplative practices would predict less parochial empathy and whether parochial empathy would mediate the relations between mindfulness/compassion and prosocial behavior toward the out-group. A national sample of n = 450 U.S. residents was recruited online via the Prolific platform using the standard sample function, which distributed the study to available participants on Prolific. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three brief, structurally equivalent audio-recorded instruction conditions: mindfulness meditation, compassion meditation, or a relaxation control, and then completed a series of tasks to assess prosociality toward in- and out-group members. The compassion training was most effective in reducing parochial empathy when controlling for all covariates. The mindfulness training reduced parochial empathy when controlling for in-group empathy, and it led to greater out-group altruism and support for out-group immigration. Parochial empathy predicted out-group altruism; however, it was not a better predictor of support for Arab immigration than trait empathic concern. Training conditions did not differ on support for out-group cause. Exploratory moderation analyses found that those with higher trait empathic concern and intergroup contact quality were more likely to show compassion training and mindfulness training effects, respectively, on support for out-group immigration. Brief compassion training had the strongest effect on parochial empathy, but mindfulness training showed stronger effects on out-group altruism and support for out-group immigration. Predisposing social psychological characteristics may enhance intergroup prosociality among those receiving compassion or mindfulness instruction. This study is preregistered at https://osf.io/rnc97. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12671-023-02100-z.

Be Careful How You Treat Your Coworkers: The Reciprocal Relationship between Ethnic Outgroup Coworkers’ Reactions to Voice and Ethnic Majority Employees’ Attitudes regarding Immigrant Entitlements

We study the reciprocal relationship between interethnic interactions among coworkers and native (Dutch) employees’ attitudes regarding immigrant entitlements. Building on contact theory, we hypothesize that voice support by ethnic outgroup coworkers leads to more favorable, while voice suppression leads to less favorable attitudes regarding immigrant entitlements. Furthermore, we examine potential reciprocal effects. The hypotheses are tested using a three-wave panel survey of native Dutch respondents. Findings indicate a negative effect of voice suppression by ethnic outgroup coworkers on attitudes regarding immigrant entitlements, implying that workplace interethnic contact can shape political attitudes. Moreover, findings indicate that the less favorable native employees’ attitudes regarding immigrant entitlements are, the more likely they are to subsequently experience suppression by ethnic outgroup coworkers.