REDUCING BIAS--THE COMMON INGROUP IDENTITY MODEL

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DESCRIPTION (Applicant's abstract): Intergroup bias, although it unfairly benefits some, has negative personal and social consequences for all citizens. The consequences of racism, for example, include more than the unrealized potential of members of minority groups and the failure to capitalize on diversity. Direct costs to majority as well as to minority groups involve the loss of human and financial resources as the result of unemployment, poverty, crime, drugs, ill-health, and personal, social and family dysfunction (see Bowser & Hunt, 1981; Jones, 1986; McLoyd, 1990). The proposed research explores the psychological processes underlying bias and examines how intergroup interactions may be structured to reduce bias and conflict as well to generalize to more positive attitudes and behaviors to the outgroup as a whole. The planned research extends the Common Ingroup Identity Model, which proposes that it is possible to engineer a recategorization of perceived group boundaries in ways that reduce intergroup bias and conflict. This model focuses on mediating processes and asserts that (1) more harmonious intergroup interactions can be facilitated by factors that emphasize a common superordinate identity between the members of different groups; and (2) favorable generalization to outgroup members not involved in the contact situation will be maximized when both superordinate and subgroup identities during contact are salient simultaneously (a dual identity). Thus this research investigates how the recognition of group commonality as well as group diversity can lead to reduced bias and conflict. The proposal derives a set of hypotheses and presents a serious of thirteen studies that together address the theoretical framework. Some studies consider directly the value of a dual identity for generalization. Additional studies address how the effects of superordinate and dual identities can result in stable and enduring effects by acting as catalysts for other processes that reduce bias, and also by instigating an exchange of reciprocally positive intergroup behaviors. Other studies extend these principles into a variety of intergroup settings including (1) a school-based intervention program, (2) a longitudinal study of step-families, and (3) a longitudinal study of persistence and attrition among college students from diverse backgrounds.