Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Explicit and implicit measures of closeness towards racial groups are compared. Subconsciously people feel closer towards racial outgroups than they are willing to admit in a survey ('norm of ingroup favoritism').

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Despite an explosion of research on interethnic cooperation and conflict, scholars and policy-makers still cannot answer two basic questions: 1) How and why do ethnic groups fall into states of conflict, cooperation, and oppression?, and 2) What policy interventions might move these groups out of conflict and oppression and back towards cooperation? In this article, we present a formal model that allows us to identify conditions under which social interventions aimed at moving groups from one of these conditions to another will work. The key, we argue, lies in understanding the interaction between institutional incentives and ingroup conformity. Among other things, our results cast serious doubt on the efficacy of approaches to conflict resolution that are based solely on changing outgroup attitudes through increased interethnic interaction (i.e. the contact hypothesis). Moreover, we illustrate how due to path dependence, the order of the changes made to these factors has a large impact on the outcomes of these changes.

Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Abstract
Three studies revisited the application of Common Ingroup Identity Model (CIIM) to the Northern Irish conflict and shed light onto the factors that potentially limit the scope of CIIM. Study 1(N = 61) validated that both conflict protagonists unanimously viewed ‘Northern Ireland’ as the most inclusive superordinate category relative to other viable categories. Study 2 (N = 307) successfully replicated previous research revealing that, while the Catholic group’s willingness to forgive the outgroup benefits from identifying with the superordinate category, the Protestants’ willingness to forgive the outgroup does not. Employing a longitudinal design, Study 3 (N = 66/44) examined perceptions of ‘psychological distance’ between identity categories as a potential factor explaining the above differences. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.

Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Research on intergroup contact increasingly considers micro-macro relationships. For instance, recent studies have shown that ethnically diverse neighbourhoods are associated with lower ethnic prejudice among the majority, presumably because they provide for more opportunities for intergroup contact. Alternatively, this relationship might arise from self-selection of individuals with lower ethnic prejudice into more ethnically diverse neighbourhoods. Furthermore, uncontrolled sociological variables (e.g. crime rate, infrastructure) might be confounded with diverse neighbourhoods, which could produce residential segregation unmediated by prejudice. We used an experimental approach to address these alternatives. A random sample of N = 523 Germans partook in a within-subjects online experiment that varied orthogonally the quality of the infrastructure, the crime rate, and the number of immigrants living in a given neighbourhood. At the within-subjects level we found that neighbourhoods with more immigrants were less attractive than neighbourhoods with fewer immigrants. This effect was weaker for participants with more immigrant friends. Surprisingly, however, the effect remained significant at all levels of intergroup contact, even controlling for prejudice. These results suggest that self-selection of majority group members into less diverse neighbourhoods, and therefore residential segregation, might persist for reasons unrelated to the psychological variables prejudice or prior intergroup contact and the sociological variables crime rate and infrastructure.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Race is an important social identity particularly for understanding communication behaviors of minorities such as Blacks. Ethnic identity is a key moderator for facilitating self categorization at the race level and ingroup favoritism. Growing prevalence of digital virtual humans offers a new venue for comparative analysis of racial processes. Study 1 (N=53) first confirmed the moderating effects of ethnic identity, demonstrating ingroup favoritism among strong ethnic-identity Blacks but not among weak ethnic-identity Blacks. Study 2 (N=64), however, found both strong and weak ethnic identifiers exhibited ingroup favoritism to virtual Black versus White entities. The difference lies in dampened responses to the virtual White entity among weak ethnic identifiers. Prototypicality and ingroup bias are suggested as explanations.