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Is Kate Winslet more American than Lucy Liu? The impact of construal processes on the implicit ascription of a national identity
Author(s) -
Devos Thierry,
Ma Debbie S.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1348/014466607x224521
Subject(s) - ascription , construal level theory , ethnic group , psychology , social psychology , identity (music) , white (mutation) , association (psychology) , flexibility (engineering) , national identity , collectivism , asian americans , social identity theory , sociology , aesthetics , social group , linguistics , individualism , anthropology , political science , philosophy , mathematics , law , psychotherapist , chemistry , biochemistry , statistics , politics , gene
In four studies, we investigated the role of person construal on the implicit ascription of a national identity. Participants completed Implicit Association Tests (Studies 1 and 3) or Go/No‐go Association Tasks (Studies 2 and 4) assessing the extent to which the concept American was linked to an Asian American celebrity (Lucy Liu) and to a White European celebrity (Kate Winslet). In contrast to explicit responses, the Asian American target was implicitly regarded as being less American than the White European target. This effect was more pronounced when targets were categorized based on their ethnic (rather than personal) identity (Studies 1 and 2) and when the exemplars draw attention to the ethnic identity of the Asian American target (Studies 3 and 4). These findings provide evidence for the flexibility of construal processes and the role of ethnicity in the implicit ascription of a national identity.