Abstract
Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election largely due to support from White Americans. This win created a new sociopolitical reality in which White Americans as a group became associated with Trump and his anti-egalitarianism. Four studies (N = 3,245) explored how liberal-leaning White Americans negotiate their racial identity to contend with group-image threat arising from the association between their racial ingroup and Trump. Trump-related group-image threat (i.e., White Americans’ support for Trump’s anti-egalitarianism or his continuation in office) led liberal-leaning White Americans to disidentify from their racial ingroup. In turn, racial disidentification predicted greater signaling of egalitarian beliefs (i.e., expressing intentions to advocate for racial equity and supporting policies designed to benefit racially minoritized groups) and behaviors (i.e., donating money to racial equity-focused organizations). These results suggest that the process of negotiating Trump-related group-image threat has implications for both White Americans’ racial identities and ongoing efforts to achieve racial equity.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1612-1632 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2021 |
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: A Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship and a National Institute on Aging (NIA) Aging and Development Training Grant (T32 AG0000030) supported A.E.E.’s contributions to this manuscript.
Keywords
- Trump
- White identity
- egalitarian
- group-image threat
- racial disidentification
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology