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Do Strong Group Identities Fuel Intolerance? Evidence From the South African Case
Author(s) -
Gibson James L.
Publication year - 2006
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/j.1467-9221.2006.00528.x
Subject(s) - outgroup , ingroups and outgroups , social identity theory , social psychology , identity (music) , group conflict , psychology , in group favoritism , test (biology) , social identity approach , social group , paleontology , physics , acoustics , biology
One conventional explanation of intergroup conflict is Social Identity Theory. That theory asserts that strong ingroup sympathies can give rise to outgroup antipathies which in turn fuel intolerance and conflict. While embraced by both macro‐ and microlevel analysts, this theory actually has not been widely investigated outside a laboratory environment. In this article, I test hypotheses linking group identities with intolerance, based on a 2001 survey in South Africa, a country where group identities have long been politicized. My empirical findings indicate that group identities are not useful predictors of South African intolerance. Indeed, for neither the black majority nor the white minority do ingroup identities activate very much outgroup intolerance. Moreover, group identities are positively, not negatively, correlated with holding a South African national identity. These findings, based on unusually broad indicators of both identity and tolerance, suggest that the causes of group conflict lie elsewhere than in group attachments.