The effect of cultural identity priming on bicultural Canadians’ political solidarity

Abstract

People who perceive their identity in-group as victimized are more likely to show political solidarity for victimized out-groups (Craig & Richeson, 2012). An increasing number of people belong to more than one cultural identity group (“biculturals”), but no one has examined biculturals’ solidarity. In my two thesis studies, I examined how priming biculturals’ identity differently affected their political solidarity. In Study 1, I primed the “Canadian” or “other” identity (or an empty control) of 261 bicultural Canadian undergraduates (67% women) from 11 “other” cultural identity groups. I expected participants to show more political solidarity when their “other” identity was salient, mediated by their perception of their group’s collective victimhood. In Study 2, I primed 28 bicultural Filipino-Canadian (54% women) undergraduates’ cultural identity (“Canadian” or “Filipino”) and collective victimhood (primed, or no prime). I expected main effects of identity and collective victimhood, and an interaction of identity and collective victimhood.