Majority Members Research Articles

Through the eyes of my peers: Sharing perceptions of unequal treatment in ethno-racially diverse classrooms.

Perceptions of unequal treatment, especially when shared, can challenge the status-quo. Starting from the social grounding of shared perceptions, we ask when perceptions of inequality align and converge in ethno-racially diverse peer groups. We are especially interested when perceptions are shared among peers across ethno-racial group boundaries. Social-psychological research suggests asymmetric sharing: Ethno-racial minority group members often see less inequality with more majority contact, while in some cases ethno-racial majority members perceive more inequality with more minority contact. Therefore, we ask if perceptions of inequality are shared across minority and majority groups within time and if perceptions of inequality converge over time. We focus on schools as sites of inequality and cross-group interactions. First, we tested our predictions with 290 minority and 468 majority youth in 53 classes in the United States using multilevel modelling. Next, we implemented follow-up studies in Belgium with 1,800 minority and 1,700 majority adolescents in 433 classes using longitudinal multilevel models. In line with intragroup sharing, minority and majority youth shared their minority and majority peers' perceptions of inequality, respectively. Furthermore, we documented cross-group sharing: Majority youth also shared their minority peers' perceptions, especially in contexts with higher minority proportions. We found consistent evidence of sharing minority perceptions, so that both majority and minority youth would see inequality through their minority peers' eyes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Understanding causes of adolescents' ascriptions of peers' dual ethnic and national belonging

AbstractDescendants of migrants often feel belonging to the ethnic minority group of their parents and the national group (i.e., dual identifiers). If second‐generation migrants are recognized as members of both groups, they can create social bridges and improve intergroup relations. However, people often ascribe them only minority belonging, thereby not recognizing dual belonging. Following the social identity approach, we examined who ascribes dual belonging to second‐generation migrants and why they do so. We focus on the role of national self‐identification, and endorsing a civic or ethnic conception of nationhood on the ascriptions that national majority members make to their second‐generation peers. We collected sociometric data from secondary vocational school classes in the Netherlands (Nstudents = 397, Nclasses = 36). Findings replicated that many second‐generation migrants self‐identified as dual (69%), but only a small number of dual ascriptions were given to them (15%). Although we found no effects for the hypothesized relations on ascribing only minority rather than dual belonging, national majority members who had a stronger national identification displayed a stronger tendency to ascribe only national rather than dual belonging. This raises the question whether dual identifiers could act as ‘gateway groups’ to improve intergroup relations.

Differential effects of positive versus negative contact: The importance of distinguishing valence from intensity

More and more research is considering the effects of both positive and negative intergroup contact on intergroup attitudes. To date, little is known about what factors may differentially influence these effects. We propose that differentiating not only between positive and negative contact (i.e., its valence), but also considering the intensity (i.e., low or high positivity/negativity) of contact valence is critical to understanding contact effects. We predicted that intensifying positivity in the realm of positive contact would have a stronger effect on outgroup attitudes than intensifying negativity. We report evidence supporting this hypothesis from three experiments which manipulated the quality of feedback given during a cooperation task by a confederate who acted as a member of a student outgroup (two online: N = 87, N = 169; one in person: N = 78), summarized in an internal meta-analysis and a large survey of White British majority and Asian British minority members ( N = 2,994). Our results suggest that intensity of valenced intergroup contact may be a key factor for resolving inconsistencies in the current literature on valenced intergroup contact.

The Effect of Climate Change Threat on Public Attitudes towards Ethnic and Religious Minorities and Climate Refugees

How does climate change threat affect attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities and climate change refugees? We show that threatening climate change can have deep psychological effects even among social majority groups in relatively prosperous and peaceful societies. Using three survey experiments with self-identified White British participants ( N = 616, N = 587, and N = 535), we demonstrate that social majority members who are exposed to threatening information about climate change (vs. neutral information) and, at the same time, feel little national efficacy over climate change, evaluate more negatively certain ethnic and religious minorities, especially Muslims and Pakistanis. We found the same trend in the evaluation of climate refugees, although it reached statistical significance only in one of the experiments. We explain these reactions as pertaining to groups that are perceived as threatening the salient ingroup and its collective agency. Our research significantly contributes to the literature on the social and political implications of (climate change) threat, especially by focusing on boundary conditions, namely the perception of collective control in case of complex and large threats.

Ethnic identity centrality across the adult lifespan: Aging, cohort, and period effects among majority and minority group members.

Ethnic identity is a major area of study across many disciplines including psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science. Yet, little is known about changes in ethnic identity across the adult lifespan, and whether such changes are driven by normal aging processes (aging effects), unique societal influences linked with one's formative years (cohort effects), or social changes during a specific time frame (period effects). We address these key oversights by utilizing 13 annual waves of longitudinal panel data from a nationwide random sample of both ethnic majority (N = 49,660) and Indigenous ethnic minority (N = 8,325) group members in New Zealand to examine changes in ethnic identity centrality using cohort-sequential latent growth modeling. This approach helps to identify changes in mean levels of ethnic identity centrality over time and whether such changes are driven by aging, cohort, and/or period effects. Our data reveal that, among both ethnic majority and ethnic minority individuals, changes in ethnic identity centrality were informed by a combination of normative aging processes, societal circumstances that reflected the unique historical context in which people grew to maturity, and societal changes during the 13 annual assessments of our study. Collectively, these results demonstrate for the first time that ethnic identity centrality in adulthood is subject to lifelong changes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

When saying sorry is not enough: The paradox of a political apology offered to Irish mother and baby home survivors

AbstractWhile political apologies cannot undo what has been done, they are often perceived as highly relevant for healing and reconciliation. However, these apologies are often mired in controversy and highly political. While research on political apologies has focused on the role of intergroup relations, limited research has explored the intragroup dynamics involved. The present article explores how the paradoxical features of a political apology to ingroup members have their source in partisanship. The analysis used methods derived from discursive psychology. Using data from six parliamentary statements that were given in response to the political apology offered to Irish mother and baby home survivors, we demonstrated how these speakers constructed and understood the apology and how these constructions relate to their own political positions. Specifically, the apology to mothers and babies is used for political purpose, allowing majority members of government to position the wrongdoings experienced by mothers and babies in the past and to encourage the national collective to move on. Others seeking progressive social change—a parliamentary minority—use the apology to shape a political narrative that demands national collective action. Our work highlights the important role that identity‐based power relations play in confronting historical injustice, and how this may result in a dual schism with people within a nation becoming divided over both the apology and the appropriate response.

Women in Pentecostal churches and mental wellbeing during the COVID- 19 pandemic: The case of the Apostolic Faith Mission of Zimbabwe

Pentecostalism, to which the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe belongs, is one of the fastest growing brands of Christianity in Zimbabwe. Most Pentecostal churches promise divine health, deliverance, miracles and prosperity to their members. In the Apostolic Faith Mission of Zimbabwe, women constitute the greater percentage of the church membership. Despite the fact that Pentecostal churches make promises of a good life, a church is generally expected to be a safe haven to its members. This paper wished to examine whether the Pentecostal church response to COVID-19 helped to build or destroy the mental health of its majority members, the women. The findings however show that the church mostly affected women’s mental health in a negative way as it grappled with the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. This article therefore contests the claim of providing a good life as done by some Pentecostal churches. This was a qualitative study and utilized findings from a sample of 15 members of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe who were selected using purposive sampling. The findings suggest that the women were stressed by the teachings on marriage and emphasis on collection of money, discrimination against single women, the prosperity gospel, and patriarchy.

Challenges Faced by Vietnam and Other Developing Countries in Participating in the WTO Dispute Settlement System (DSS)

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is currently experiencing a crisis in its dispute system, driven by an increasing number of disputes, escalating complexity of case law, and the ongoing blockade by the United States of Appellate Body appointments since 2016. This blockade has resulted in significant delays in the WTO’s litigation process, disproportionately affecting developing countries - majority members of the WTO - due to the substantial financial costs associated with pursuing litigation. This study aims to analyze the challenges faced by Vietnam and other developing nations in navigating the WTO dispute system. Employing a qualitative methodology, this research will draw on primary sources including legal documents, official WTO reports, and governmental statements. The findings are expected to highlight the limitations of current WTO regulations, the inadequate support from the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL), and the financial obstacles that deter developing countries from participating actively in the Dispute Settlement System.

Η ποικιλομορφία και η πολυλειτουργικότητα του ρατσισμού σε άρθρα μεταναστευτικής εφημερίδας

Contemporary western nation-states are built on national and racist discourses and values which are not easily contested by majority members and may affect the discourse and behaviors of minority members as well, even though the latter suffer from the discriminatory consequences of such discourses and values. Research has shown that minority members do not always resist national/racist pressures but often succumb to them, thus accepting majority values and perceiving themselves as Others, namely as majority members usually perceive them. In this context, the present study attempts to explore ways of detecting minority members’ (in the present case, migrants’) internalized racism (Pyke, 2010). The critical analyses performed on two newspaper articles written by young female migrants living in Greece aim to show that, in their effort to adjust themselves to the Greek linguacultural context and to form ties with majority members, the authors reproduce racist views and values usually attested among members of the Greek majority. Given that these articles are published in a newspaper of left wing, antiracist, and pro-migrant orientation, the co-existence of racist and antiracist meanings and values in the same texts blurs the boundaries between racism and antiracism. This renders the texts examined here instances of liquid racism (Weaver, 2016), namely an ambiguous form of racism giving rise to opposing (i.e. racist and antiracist) interpretations and further entrenching the hegemony of racist discourse.

Trump Voters' social position in U.S. Society: Uniqueness and radical‐right support

Trump Voters' social position in U.S. Society: Uniqueness and radical‐right support

Group boundaries in the Netherlands: how religion and ethnicity matter for social integration

Abstract Both religion and ethnicity have been found to be important group boundaries for immigrants’ social integration into European societies. However, since both characteristics often overlap, their unique influences remain understudied. Conceptualizing social integration as a form of boundary work, this study aims to disentangle religious and ethnic group distinctions and to examine how they matter for immigrants’ contact with members of the Dutch majority group. Relying on data from four large immigrant groups in the Netherlands, that allows exploiting religious diversity within ethnic groups, we describe differences in contact with Dutch majority members between 13 ethno-religious group combinations, and we perform multiple-group SEM across the 10 largest combinations. Results indicate that while the importance of religious affiliation and ethnicity is group-specific, the strongest boundary for immigrants’ contact with members of the Dutch majority group is that between the religious and non-religious. The relative importance of religion and ethnicity for social integration is explained both by immigrants’ own maintenance of group boundaries and their perception of boundary permeability.

Identity change and economic mobility: Experimental evidence

I study the impact identity change (assimilation) has on economic mobility. I experimentally assign people to different group identities, majority or minority, before they interact in a social coordination setting. In equilibrium, minority assimilators achieve economic mobility by integrating with the majority. In the experiment, assimilators are discriminated against and cannot integrate, if majority members encounter conformists (non-assimilators) in the minority. Thus, assimilators fail to attain economic mobility because those who maintain the status quo impose negative externalities on those who risk changing it.

Lineage-specific gene duplication and expansion of DUF1216 gene family in Brassicaceae.

Proteins containing domain of unknown function (DUF) are prevalent in eukaryotic genome. The DUF1216 proteins possess a conserved DUF1216 domain resembling to the mediator protein of Arabidopsis RNA polymerase II transcriptional subunit-like protein. The DUF1216 family are specifically existed in Brassicaceae, however, no comprehensive evolutionary analysis of DUF1216 genes have been performed. We performed a first comprehensive genome-wide analysis of DUF1216 proteins in Brassicaceae. Totally 284 DUF1216 genes were identified in 27 Brassicaceae species and classified into four subfamilies on the basis of phylogenetic analysis. The analysis of gene structure and conserved motifs revealed that DUF1216 genes within the same subfamily exhibited similar intron/exon patterns and motif composition. The majority members of DUF1216 genes contain a signal peptide in the N-terminal, and the ninth position of the signal peptide in most DUF1216 is cysteine. Synteny analysis revealed that segmental duplication is a major mechanism for expanding of DUF1216 genes in Brassica oleracea, Brassica juncea, Brassica napus, Lepidium meyneii, and Brassica carinata, while in Arabidopsis thaliana and Capsella rubella, tandem duplication plays a major role in the expansion of the DUF1216 gene family. The analysis of Ka/Ks (non-synonymous substitution rate/synonymous substitution rate) ratios for DUF1216 paralogous indicated that most of gene pairs underwent purifying selection. DUF1216 genes displayed a specifically high expression in reproductive tissues in most Brassicaceae species, while its expression in Brassica juncea was specifically high in root. Our studies offered new insights into the phylogenetic relationships, gene structures and expressional patterns of DUF1216 members in Brassicaceae, which provides a foundation for future functional analysis.

The Political-Administrative Nexus in Sub-National Governance: Exploring the Lack of Independent Administration in Poland

The main problem addressed in the paper is the relation between politics and administration. The authors try to answer if independent administration exists at the sub-national level in Poland. In a more detailed manner, the question is whether an acceptance of independent administration has been fostered by the dispersion of political power and the experience of participation in important decision-making processes. The data used in the article come from a survey of councillors and in-depth interviews with councillors and clerks. The analysis proved that the councillors’ opinions as to the independence of administration are influenced by their participation in the ruling majority. Opposition members support stricter, more stringent legislative oversight. Majority members, on the contrary, accept greater independence of administration. The result of the study leads also to a conclusion about the importance of monopolization and the influence on administration by the executive and the majority councillors. Administration becomes perceived as a functional part of the majority. A more fundamental conclusion is when there is no programmatic competition between political groupings of councillors, there are no conditions for establishing an administration independent of politics. This outcome completes the relationship noted by Miller and Whitford with the programmatic dimension of political competition.

The Minority Confederate Induced Errors of the Majority Members in the Role-Inverted Asch Experiment

This study aimed to investigate whether errors made by minority group members could influence the behavior of the majority in a role-reversed version of Asch's conformity experiment. Eighty-five undergraduate students, comprising 51 males and 34 females, were organized into groups of four individuals who were already acquainted with each other. From these groups, we randomly selected twelve, and discreetly instructed the third student in each group (a confederate) to provide incorrect responses on six out of the nine line-judgment tasks, similar to Asch's majority's behavior. The findings revealed that groups with the confederate member did lead to an increase in errors from other group members, although this increase did not reach statistical significance. Nevertheless, further analyses indicated that participants were more likely to make errors when other group members had already responded incorrectly. Consequently, we interpreted these errors as a form of social conformity, where participants intentionally made mistakes to alleviate the awkwardness of having only one member of the group providing incorrect answers. In summary, this study provides insights into the dynamics of social conformity and the impact of minority errors on group behavior in a role-reversed Asch experiment.

Highly skilled and highly skeptical? How education and origin shape newcomers’ relationship with their new home*

ABSTRACT This article explores how level of education and region of origin (EU versus non-EU) shape newcomers’ perceptions of being welcome and treated fairly upon arrival, as well as their feelings of closeness and belonging to majority members and their long-term commitment to their new country of residence. Our results show that the impact of these factors – education and EU background – varies between these dimensions in shaping individuals’ attitudes and feelings about their new home. Feelings of being welcome and treated fairly do not differ much between origin groups per se, but they do differ between highly skilled and less-skilled migrants, although in a paradoxical way. Skilled third-country nationals are more skeptical than individuals with lower levels of education, and they are also more likely to feel marginalized. As regards the other dimensions, origin clearly trumps education. Although EU migrants are not particularly skeptical about Germany, they feel less close to it and more hesitant to make a long-term commitment to the country. Our analysis shows that skilled migrants do not relate in a consistent or homogeneous way to their destination country.

Size and ethnic homogeneity of extended social networks in the Netherlands: Differences between migrant groups and migrant generations

AbstractExtended social networks encompass both weak and strong ties to provide social support and resources. Hence, it is important to study what explains variation in these networks. This paper addresses this and examines the size and ethnic homogeneity of extended social networks, and group differences therein, and it aims to explain these differences based on a preference–opportunities approach through a decomposition analysis. We apply state‐of‐the‐art NSUM methods to measure the extended networks for different ethnic‐majority and minoritized groups, also considering migrant generation differences, in the Netherlands. Results show that group differences in network size reflect first‐generation minority citizens having smaller networks and majority citizens having more ethnically homogeneous networks. More positive out‐group attitudes among the Moroccan– and Turkish–Dutch partly explain why these groups have less homogeneous networks than Dutch majority members. Differences in the ethnic composition of neighbourhoods also contribute to explaining the homogeneity gap between Dutch majority and Turkish‐Dutch.

Frontline employees' responses to citizens' communication of administrative burdens

Executive SummaryThe literature on administrative burdens demonstrates that citizens may experience different kinds of administrative burdens when interacting with the state. However, we know little about whether citizens' communication of these experiences affects how frontline employees implement compliance demands. Building on the street‐level bureaucracy and administrative burden literature, we hypothesize that citizens' communication of direct and indirect psychological costs affects frontline employees' inclination to accommodate citizens. Furthermore, we expect this effect to be stronger for members of the ethnic majority than for ethnic minority members. We test these expectations using a preregistered survey experiment on a sample of 1048 Danish public caseworkers from 32 employment agencies. Results show that frontline employees are indeed more willing to reduce demands and help citizens that communicate their experiences of direct and indirect psychological costs. Further, we find some evidence that frontline employees are more responsive to citizens from the ethnic majority.

Instructors’ Understanding of Teaching First-Year Engineering Teaming: Characterization and Redirection

Teaming is increasingly important to teach well in undergraduate engineering education. Teams composed of both majority and minoritized students have an increased risk of majority members harassing minoritized members. Instructors of large classes have a difficult time identifying in which teams such harassment is taking place, and knowing what to do to interrupt it. This paper, part of a bigger project grounded in microaggression theory and selective incivility theory, specifically considers what instructors currently do, and indeed whether it is their job to address teammate harassment. We undertook a rough thematic analysis of interviews with instructors of a large first-year engineering course at a large American research-extensive majority-white university in the Midwest. We found instructors adopted an individual-centric model of teaming, intervened mainly in severe instances, and their interventions tended to be subtle. We offer an early version of an alternative model to structure forthcoming training sessions with instructors, graduate teaching assistants, and peer teachers.

Immigrant political participation is associated with more positive majority immigration attitudes across European countries and Swiss cantons

Immigrants are increasingly participating in politics, publicizing their political concerns and contributions. How does such political participation relate to national majorities’ immigration attitudes? Previous research suggested potential improvement of majority attitudes but also demonstrated the exacerbation of perceived threat. We investigated whether greater immigrant political participation is related to more positive or negative immigration attitudes among majority members. We implemented a cross-national and a cross-cantonal multilevel study drawing on the European Social Survey, the Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey and the Swiss Migration-Mobility Survey with 43,632 participants in 26 European countries in Study 1 and with 1058 participants in 19 Swiss cantons in Study 2. Overall, higher levels of immigrant political participation were related to more positive attitudes. This association between participation and attitudes was stronger among left-wing than among right-wing nationals. Finally, we found no evidence that larger immigrant groups’ participation evoke threat and exacerbate attitudes. We conclude that immigrant political participation is associated with more positive majority attitudes.