Premium
The Racial Divide in Response to the Aftermath of Katrina: A Boundary Condition for Common Ingroup Identity Model
Author(s) -
DachGruschow Karl,
Hong Yingyi
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
analyses of social issues and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1530-2415
pISSN - 1529-7489
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2006.00110.x
Subject(s) - identity (music) , blame , prejudice (legal term) , racism , social identity theory , social psychology , ingroups and outgroups , criminology , psychology , white (mutation) , ethnic group , sociology , political science , gender studies , social group , law , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , acoustics , gene
The disastrous aftermath of Katrina brought to light a great rift between Blacks and Whites in the United States. Polls taken shortly after the disaster gave clear indication that many Blacks felt that the response to Katrina was slowed by racism. At the same time, many Whites felt that the residents of New Orleans were to blame for their predicament. To understand the causal role ethnic identity plays in shaping individuals’ perceptions, the present study experimentally manipulated Whites’ social identification and measured their perceptions of the Katrina disaster's aftermath. Our results indicate that White Americans exhibited greater prejudice when thinking of themselves as “American” (an identity seemingly inclusive of Blacks) than when identifying as “White American” or “European American” (an identity that seemingly excludes Blacks). This finding demonstrates a boundary condition to the Common Ingroup Identity Model, such that a dual identity is more conducive to positive intergroup relations when strong racial assumptions exist about the overarching identity.