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Group Identity and Conflicting Expectations of the Future in Northern Ireland
Author(s) -
Leach Colin Wayne,
Williams Wendy R.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
political psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.419
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1467-9221
pISSN - 0162-895X
DOI - 10.1111/0162-895x.00171
Subject(s) - protestantism , social psychology , futures contract , identity (music) , ingroups and outgroups , context (archaeology) , collective identity , group conflict , politics , psychology , social identity theory , northern ireland , sociology , social group , political science , law , economics , ethnology , physics , acoustics , financial economics , paleontology , biology
Much of the conflict in Northern Ireland is based on investments in one of three opposing political futures possible for the region: remaining part of Britain, joining Ireland, or becoming independent. Speculative scenarios describing each of these futures were randomly assigned to equal numbers of Protestant and Catholic undergraduates in Northern Ireland, and their expectations regarding material and civic improvement for their ingroup and peace and reconciliation between the groups were assessed. Two dimensions of religious identity, measured by the Identity and Public subscales of Luhtanen and Crocker's (1992) Collective Self‐Esteem Scale (CSES), moderated the differences between groups, but only for their expectations of peace and reconciliation. Stronger expectations of improvement for the ingroup were related to higher scores on the Public subscale, regardless of religion or the political future presented. Thus, group identity had a complex, context‐dependent relationship to intergroup conflict.