MIDUS Study participants were asked how closely do they identify with their 1) ethnicity and 2) race; how much do they prefer to be with their own 1) ethnicity and 2) race; how important is it to marry someone of the same 1) ethnicity and 2) race; and how closely do they identify as an American.
I calculated the Pearson correlations for each possible pair of questions for whites only (sample size = 4,075). All of the 21 correlations are positive, and the average is .30 which indicates a moderate, positive relationship. The strongest correlations are among the ethnicity items (around .60), and also among the race items. The weakest correlations are between the American question and other measures. The vast majority of study participants identify strongly as Americans so the lack of variation reduces the correlations.
Bottom line: whites either tend identify with groups at all levels or no groups at any level. To put it in exaggerated terms, ethnicists are racialists are patriots. Individualists are individualists are individualists.
Are gun owners mentally ill?
Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...
"To put it in exaggerated terms, ethnicists are racialists are patriots. Individualists are individualists are individualists."
ReplyDeleteYeah, that makes sense. I'm betting there's a 'group affiliation' brain module that has varying strengths in different people. Ron: how does this correlate with extroversion, agreeableness, etc.? I'd bet it correlates with church attendance quite a bit.
"The white "individualists" are simply whites who have been indoctrinated to apply their inherited individualism without regard to the hostility of the institutions doing the indoctrination."
I doubt it, individualists are individualists. I think your argument is simple enough as it stands: whites have a lower overall level of group affiliation than other races. I think Ron actually found black people are more patriotic; Ron, is this the case?
My theory is as follows: the human mind has a 'group affiliation' module that gets turned on to varying degrees in different situations and in different people. I'd actually expect group affiliation to be stronger in minorities: if you're the majority, it's like the air you breathe and you don't notice it.
Unfortunately (for our study, fortunately for the people involved) there's no majority-nonwhite state as of yet, so we can't really test this with GSS data. Any ideas?
"Unfortunately (for our study, fortunately for the people involved) there's no majority-nonwhite state as of yet, so we can't really test this with GSS data. Any ideas?"
ReplyDeleteI thought at least Texas and California were majority non-white.
SFG: If I remember correctly, black patriotism was almost as high as that of whites. I'll look for data to test your hypothesis.
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