Racial minorities support minority candidates more when negational racial identity is salient

Evidence

We predicted that when negational identities are made salient (e.g., not being White), members of racial minorities will be more likely to support a political candidate from other racial minority groups relative to a candidate from a majority racial group (i.e., White). Further, we expect this difference to be driven by warmer attitudes towards other minority groups when negational racial identities are salient. The 2008 Democratic primary offered a unique opportunity to test the power of negational identity to unite minority voters around the racial minority candidate, Barack Obama. Between October 16 and December 17 in 2008 (before the first Democratic Party contest, the Iowa Caucus), we conducted two experiments that simulated political polling and tested whether Asians (Experiment 1) and Latinos (Experiment 2) were more likely to vote for Obama when their negational racial identity (i.e., non- White), as compared to their affirmational identity (i.e., Asians or Latinos), was made salient. — Chen-Bo Zhong, Adam D. Galinsky, and Miguel M. Unzueta, Negational racial identity and…, 20

We predicted that the Asian participants in the negational condition would report being more likely to vote for Obama than participants in the affirmational condition. Indeed, participants who wrote about not being a Caucasian were more likely to vote for Obama than participants who wrote about being an Asian, v2 = 5.22, p = .0221 (Table 1). Thus, the affirmational condition replicated the voting pattern among Asians in the California primary (a significant preference for Clinton), whereas activating a negational racial identity increased Asian participant’s willingness to vote for Obama, the racial minority candidate. — Chen-Bo Zhong, Adam D. Galinsky, and Miguel M. Unzueta, Negational racial identity and…, 26

Categorization

• XREF: This is the original source for the finding already central to the We-They Engine thread — confirms boundary conditions: 2 experiments, affirmative vs negational priming, 2008 primary window. — connects to: Negational identity can build coalitions across minority groups by de-emphasizing in-group. — Chen-Bo Zhong, Adam D. Galinsky, and Miguel M. Unzueta, Negational racial identity and…, 47; Highlighting a shared non-White negational identity increased minority support for a Black presidential candidate. — Chen-Bo Zhong, Adam D. Galinsky, and Miguel M. Unzueta, Negational racial identity and…, 35; Making negational identity salient shifts voting choices toward shared out-group members — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1115 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: n unclear — Experiment 1 (Asians) was 38 participants, but how many Latinos in Experiment 2? Need to read further for the second sample.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Chen-Bo Zhong, Adam D. Galinsky, and Miguel M. Unzueta, Negational racial identity and…, 20; Chen-Bo Zhong, Adam D. Galinsky, and Miguel M. Unzueta, Negational racial identity and…, 26

Broader Connections

• Highlighting a shared non-White negational identity increased minority support for a Black presidential candidate. #exemplifies (0.97) — Chen-Bo Zhong, Adam D. Galinsky, and Miguel M. Unzueta, Negational racial identity and…, 35
• Making negational identity salient shifts voting choices toward shared out-group members #expands (0.92) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1115
• Coalitional antiracist identity politics suppressed internal differences among the nonwhite #qualifies (0.78) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 151