American = White ? 54
1 Running Head: AMERICAN = WHITE? American = White? Thierry Devos Mahzarin R. Banaji San Diego State University Harvard University American = White? 2 Abstract In six studies, the extent to which American ethnic groups (African, Asian, and White) are associated with the national category “American” was investigated. Although strong explicit commitments to egalitarian principles were expressed (Study 1), each of five subsequent studies consistently revealed that both African and Asian Americans as groups are less associated with the national category “American” than are White Americans (Studies 2-6). Under some circumstances, a complete dissociation between mean levels of explicit beliefs and implicit responses emerged such that an ethnic minority was explicitly regarded to be more American than were White Americans (e.g., African Americans representing the U.S. in Olympic sports), but implicit measures showed the reverse pattern (Studies 3 and 4). In addition, Asian American participants themselves showed the American = White effect, although African Americans did not (Study 5). Importantly, the American = White association predicted the strength of national identity in White Americans: the greater the exclusion of Asian Americans from the category “American,” the greater the identification with being American (Study 6). Together, these studies provide evidence that to be American is implicitly synonymous with being White. American = White? 3 American = White? In 1937, the Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York invited the Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal to study the “Negro problem” in America. The main message from Myrdal’s now classic study was captured in the title of his book, An American Dilemma (1944). Contrary to expectations that White Americans would express prejudice without compunction, Myrdal found that even sixty years ago in the deep South, White citizens clearly experienced a moral dilemma, “an ever-raging conflict” between strong beliefs in equality and liberty for all and the reality of their actions and their history.
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