Perceptions of the heterogeneity of party elites in the United States

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 444-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth N Simas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
The United States ◽  
Brand Names ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Psychological Bias

While it is widely accepted that in the United States, political party labels serve as brand names which cue voters about the beliefs and ideologies of members, I explore the possibility that the signals sent by these labels are contingent upon the party membership of the individual voter. More specifically, I draw on social identity theory and hypothesize that individuals will be more likely to perceive heterogeneity among members of their own party. I find support for this hypothesis in perceptions of both the overall ideologies and voting records of US senators. Additionally, I compare respondent perceptions back to actual voting records and find that inpartisans are (1) only more likely to be correct when senators do in fact vote differently and (2) significantly less likely to be correct when senators vote the same way. These results suggest that the partisan differences uncovered are due to psychological bias and not just informational asymmetries and that biases stemming from group membership may lead to distorted opinions of senators and the representation they provide.

scholarly journals The Oppressed, the Suspect, and the Citizen: Subjectivity in Competing Accounts of Political Violence

2001 ◽  
Vol 26 (01) ◽  
pp. 63-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Bibler Coutin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Central America ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
The United States ◽  
Liberal Theory ◽  
Legal Action ◽  
Asylum Law ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Individual

By juxtaposing religious, legal, and victims'accounts of political violence, this essay identifies and critiques assumptions about agency, the individual, and the state that derive from liberal theory and that underlie U.S. asylum law. In the United States, asylum is available to aliens whose gooernments fail to protect them from persecution on the basis of their race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or social group membership. Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants have challenged this definition of persecution with their two-decade-long struggle for asylum in the United States. During the 1980s, U.S. religious advocates and solidarity workers took legal action on behalf of what they characterized as victims of oppression in Central America. The asylum claims narrated by the beneficiaries of these legal efforts suggest that repessiwe pactices rendered entire populations politically suspect. To prevail in immigration court, however, victims had to prove that they were individually targeted because of being somehow “different” from the population at large. In other words, to obtain asylum, persecution victims had to explain how and why their actions had placed them at risk, even though persecution obscured the reasons that particular individuals were targeted and thus rendered all politically suspect.

scholarly journals Understanding Black-African International Students’ Experiences in United States Colleges and Universities through Social Identity Theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Carole Awuor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Students ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Black African

In this literature review, Henri Tajfel’s social identity theory (SIT) is explained and examined as potentially useful for analyzing the experiences of Black-African international students (BAIS) in U. S. colleges and universities. Race has been and still is a major issue in the United States. Through this review of literature, I sought to find out how BAIS race affected their experiences in the United States.

A Social Identity Threat Perspective on Why Partisans May Engage in Greater Victim Blaming and Sexual Assault Myth Acceptance in the #MeToo Era

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780122110145
Author(s):  
Rebecca R. Ortiz ◽  
Andrea M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
The United States ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
Identity Threat ◽  
Social Identity Threat ◽  
Myth Acceptance

This study examined how U.S. partisans ( N = 1,154) may engage in greater victim blaming and sexual assault myth acceptance to defend their political identities in the #MeToo era. The more Republicans and Democrats identified with being a member of their political party and reported feeling defensive when members from their political party are criticized, the more accepting they were of common sexual assault myths and thus the less likely they were to perceive sexual assault as a serious issue in need of addressing and the #MeToo movement as having a positive impact in the United States.

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

Comparative Context and Relevant Group Membership: Attitudes on Gender Inequality within the Context of Contrasting Leaders

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayoub Bouguettaya
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Context Effect ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
Relevant Group ◽  
Leader Perceptions ◽  
Main Effects

In this paper, the interaction between relevant group membership (i.e. gender) and context on leader perceptions was analysed within the paradigm of social identity theory. It was hypothesised that sharing group membership with a leader would result in to more positive ratings of a leader, while context would change how leaders were viewed depending on how much they embodied group values in relation to other leaders. The issue of contention to be contrasted between leaders was gender inequality. This context effect pattern was predicted to be different for males than females; males were believed to rate a leader more positively when the leader expressed a contextually more dismissive view, while females were predicted to rate a leader better when the leader expressed a contextually more proactive view. The hypotheses about the main effects of gender and context were supported; however, the results for the interaction were mixed in support. Gender and context did significantly interact, but it was not always in the directions predicted. Further research into this interaction is needed.

Black American Social Identity and Its Blackness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lionel K. McPherson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
African Ancestry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black American ◽  
Racial Classification

Understanding black American social identity has suffered from association with the race idea. Being black American is not a racial designation. The tendency to reduce color-conscious social identity to racial classification is a mistake. Black American social identity gets its “blackness” from traceable African ancestry and is marked by the legacy of slavery. Yet being black American has become an elective identity: Americans with visible African ancestry no longer must count as black. But this hardly threatens black social identity and black solidarity, which continue to represent resistance to dishonor and mistreatment attaching to blackness in the United States.

Weight Identity Among Older Adults in the United States: Genetic and Environmental Influences

2018 ◽  
pp. 262-274
Author(s):  
Robbee Wedow ◽  
Daniel A. Briley ◽  
Susan E. Short ◽  
Jason Boardman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Weight Status ◽  
Environmental Influences ◽  
Subjective Assessment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Perceived Weight ◽  
Midlife Adults

This chapter uses twin pairs from the Midlife in the United States study to investigate the genetic and environmental influences on perceived weight status for midlife adults. The inquiry builds on previous work investigating the same phenomenon in adolescents, and it shows that perceived weight status is not only heritable, but also heritable beyond objective weight. Subjective assessment of physical weight is independent of one’s physical weight and described as “weight identity.” Importantly, significant differences are shown in the heritability of weight identity among men and women. The chapter ends by discussing the potential relevance of these findings for broader social identity research.

Medicaid Not Required to Fund Medically Necessary Abortions

1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (8) ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
George J. Annas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Medical Procedures ◽  
Poor Women ◽  
Law Enforcement Agency ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Joint Resolution

In an extraordinary and highly controversial 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court decided on June 30, 1980, that the United States Constitution does not require either the federal government or the individual states to fund medically necessary abortions for poor women who qualify for Medicaid.At issue in this case is the constitutionality of the Hyde Amendment. The applicable 1980 version provides:|N]one of the funds provided by this joint resolution shall be used to perform abortions except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term; or except for such medical procedures necessary for the victims of rape or incest when such rape or incest has been reported promptly to a law enforcement agency or public health service, (emphasis supplied)

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