How national cues increase prejudice among intra-national racial groups: Testing behavioral implications, boundaries, and mechanisms

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

How do the ideals and values associated with a nation influence its citizens? On a daily basis, the ethos of a nation is invoked in public discourse concerning current events, policies, scandals, and crises. People commonly express allegiance to national values and ideas, even citing them as reasons to die for their country. And yet, despite considerable speculation in the social sciences on how national cues might influence the citizenry in both subtle and obvious ways, there is surprisingly scarce empirical work revealing exactly how and when that happens. The proposed research breaks new ground in understanding the implicit and explicit influence of symbols of nationalism on people's everyday attitudes, decisions, and behaviors. The researchers plan to identify situations in which the implicit processing of cues to nationalism increases, versus decreases, prejudice and bias toward people of racial and ethnic outgroups. The studies focus on helping behavior as an ecologically valid and important consequence of prejudice. The proposed studies use cutting-edge as well as classical methods, in the lab and field, to test the implications this research for helping people from similar versus different racial and ethnic groups. The proposed work will produce a significant amount of research activity that will involve undergraduates, graduate students, and other faculty in a broadly collaborative effort. The researcher is also developing a research lab website that will make available for download the data, tasks, and measures used in the research, in order to increase collaborative efforts and extensions. The website will also have a significant public outreach component aimed at increasing the general public's knowledge of cutting edge research on nationalism, prejudice, and helping behavior.