Racial Majority & Minority Group Members' Psychological and Political Reactions to Minority Population Growth

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Principal investigator:

Maureen Craig

New York University

Email: maureen.craig@nyu.edu

Homepage: https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/maureen-alyson-craig.html


Sample size: 2625

Field period: 05/24/2016-09/15/2016

Hypotheses

1) Hispanic population growth will lead non-Hispanic minorities to express more politically conservative positions and ideology, compared with the control prime

2) more exploratorily, Asian population growth may lead non-Asian minorities to express more politically conservative positions and ideology, compared with the control prime

3) also explored whether cultural/system threat and group status threat serve as statistical mediators of any observed effects

Experimental Manipulations
There was 1 experimental manipulation: participants were randomly assigned to read a brief vignette, accompanied by a graph, that described either a) the growth of the Hispanic population in the US (Hispanic growth condition), b) the growth of the Asian population in the US (Asian growth condition), or c) the growth in geographic mobility in the US (control condition)
Outcomes
Policy preferences, political ideology
Summary of Results
This research tested whether different racial minority groups react to minority outgroup growth with a shift towards conservative policy preferences. Results revealed that among Asian American participants, Hispanic growth information elicited more conservative policy endorsement, compared with control information, b = 0.36, p = .007, controlling for baseline political ideology. Conversely, Asian growth information did not influence Asian American participants' policy positions, compared with control information, b = 0.13, p = .405. Among Hispanic and Black American participants, the population growth conditions did not differ from control, ps>.340. Analyses of potential mediators through which making outgroup growth salient may affect policy support—e.g., concerns about the societal system/American culture (Jost et al., 2007), concerns about Hispanics and Asians gaining status and resources in society (group status threat/realistic threat; Stephan, Ybarra, & Bachman, 1999) did not show consistent evidence of mechanism.
References
Craig, M. A., & Richeson, J. A. (2018). "Hispanic population growth engenders conservative shift among non-Hispanic racial minorities." Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(4): 383-392.