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'Dual identity' is focus of UD research project
5:23 p.m., Oct. 16, 2006--A University of Delaware social psychology researcher has received $499,658 from the National Science Foundation to lead a project that will consider an important construct in intergroup relations that can determine whether relations between groups will be contentious or harmonious. The work, which will be conducted at the University of Delaware, the University of Connecticut and Delaware State University, could have significant policy implications regarding when assimilation or multicultural strategies are more effective for initiating more positive relations between different groups across a variety of settings, according to Samuel L. Gaertner, UD professor of psychology and the principal investigator for the project. John F. Dovidio, a UD alumnus who is now a professor of psychology at Connecticut, is co-principal investigator for the project, and James P. Kurtz, chairperson of the Department of Psychology at Delaware State, is playing an important role in facilitating the portion of the work that will be done there. Gaertner and Dovidio have spent about 30 years conducting research on intergroup relations and, in particular, on how prejudice, discrimination and intergroup conflict can be reduced when the members of two groups conceive of themselves as a single, more inclusive group. This work has led them from the laboratory to more applied settings, such as corporate mergers, blended families and public school classrooms. During their studies, they have found that an enduring question is why, in certain situations, dual identities--in which members of different groups conceive of themselves as different groups on the same team--lead to improved intergroup relations while in other situations they heighten intergroup bias, tension and conflict. Gaertner said the new project extends their earlier work on a behavioral model they developed that is known as the Common Ingroup Identity Model. That work has examined the dynamics of group identity and conflict among majority and minority group members. The model proposes that intergroup bias and conflict can be reduced by factors that transform perceptions of the memberships from two separate groups to either a more inclusive single group or a more complex unit in which the previously separate group identities remain salient within a more inclusive overarching entity, that is, through a dual identity. The researchers' previous work indicates that once achieved, the strength of the inclusive single group consistently relates to a lower level of bias toward those members formerly part of an “out” group, Gaertner said. Conversely, he said, the strength of separate group identities consistently relates to higher levels of bias by members of one group toward those in the other group. In contrast to the consistent effects of simple one-group and two-group representations, Gaertner said separate studies on dual identity conducted with students in a multi-ethnic high school, with people who have been involved in corporate mergers and with complex blended families have yielded inconsistent results. “We looked at dual identities in a high school with multiple ethnicities, and we found that the more the cooperation among groups, the more the status of the various ethnic groups was seen to be equal and the more the school authorities supported these concepts, the more the students felt like one group, even while maintaining their dual identities, and the less bias they exhibited,” Gaertner said. In other studies with people involved in corporate mergers and in stepfamilies, dual identity did not lead to positive intergroup relations. “We have found this a puzzle,” Gaertner said. “Why, in a multi-ethnic high school, is dual identity associated with lower intergroup bias where in a corporate merger or a stepfamily it is associated with more bias?” Gaertner said the NSF-funded project will “try to determine why that happens” and relates to “broader issues concerning the most effective pattern for integrating various ethnic groups into the fabric of our society.” The project will include nine experimental laboratory and field studies to be conducted at UD, Delaware State and Connecticut. The studies will examine four potential moderating factors that might help explain the inconsistent effects of dual identity obtained in previous research, Gaertner said. Those are minority and majority group status; domain of subgroup and subordinate group identity; threat to original group identity implied by different integration patterns; and the anticipated context, either harmonious or contentious, of intergroup relations. Importantly, Gaertner said, the research will be conducted from the different perspectives of racial majority and minority group students attending UD and Connecticut, where a large majority of undergraduate students are white, and Delaware State, an historically black university where a majority of undergraduate students are African American. This will enable the researchers to study the effects of numerical and broader cultural conceptions of majority and minority status on preferred representations and bias. The project has as many practical implications as well as theoretical benefits, Gaertner said, noting that it has the potential to demonstrate that, because majority and minority groups have different perspectives and possess different integration ideologies, effective interventions to reduce intergroup bias and conflict need to consider these different orientations. The implications of the research could extend well beyond the scope of social psychology and contribute to current debates about whether assimilationist or multicultural strategies are most effective at fostering harmonious relations between groups as the U.S. deals with large numbers of immigrants, Gaertner said. Gaertner said the project has been provided important support by George Watson, senior associate dean of UD's College of Arts and Sciences, by Thomas DiLorenzo, chairperson of UD's Department of Psychology; and by John N. Austin, director of DSU's Office of Sponsored Programs. Gaertner joined the UD faculty in 1970 after earning a doctorate from the City University of New York: Graduate Center. He earned both a bachelor's degree and a master's from Brooklyn College. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society, and in 2004 was named, with Dovidio, a joint winner of the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. The Kurt Lewin Memorial Award is a noted career award for social scientists. Dovidio earned his doctorate from UD in 1977, with Gaertner as his dissertation adviser. Article by Neil Thomas |
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