Race to the Top
A New Threat in the Air: Macroeconomic Threat Increases Prejudice against Asian Americans
David Butz & Kumar Yogeeswaran
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Macroeconomic conditions have long been suspected of increasing hostility toward ethnic outgroups. Integrating prior work on macroeconomic threat with recent threat-based models of prejudice, the current work employs an experimental approach to examine the implications of economic threat for prejudice toward ethnic outgroups. In Study 1, participants primed with an economic threat (relative to a non-economic threat and neutral topic) reported more prejudice against Asian Americans, an ethnic group whose stereotype implies a threat to scarce employment opportunities. In addition, economic threat led to a heightened state of anxiety, which mediated the influence of economic threat on prejudice against Asian Americans. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings by demonstrating that economic threat heightened prejudice against Asian Americans, but not Black Americans, an ethnic group whose stereotype does not imply a threat to economic resources. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the role of macroeconomic conditions in potentiating antisocial responses to particular outgroups.
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The Roman State and Genetic Pacification
Peter Frost
Evolutionary Psychology, July 2010, Pages 376-389
Abstract:
Over the last 10,000 years, the human genome has changed at an accelerating rate. The change seems to reflect adaptations to new social environments, including the rise of the State and its monopoly on violence. State societies punish young men who act violently on their own initiative. In contrast, non-State societies usually reward such behavior with success, including reproductive success. Thus, given the moderate to high heritability of male aggressiveness, the State tends to remove violent predispositions from the gene pool while favoring tendencies toward peacefulness and submission. This perspective is applied here to the Roman state, specifically its long-term effort to pacify the general population. By imperial times, this effort had succeeded so well that the Romans saw themselves as being inherently less violent than the "barbarians" beyond their borders. By creating a pacified and submissive population, the empire also became conducive to the spread of Christianity - a religion of peace and submission. In sum, the Roman state imposed a behavioral change that would over time alter the mix of genotypes, thus facilitating a subsequent ideological change.
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Reactions to ethnic deviance: The role of backlash in racial stereotype maintenance
Julie Phelan & Laurie Rudman
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, August 2010, Pages 265-281
Abstract:
Backlash effects are social and economic penalties for counterstereotypical behavior (Rudman & Phelan, 2008). Five experiments support a model of the role of backlash in racial stereotype maintenance from the standpoint of perceivers and actors (Rudman & Fairchild, 2004). In Experiment 1, perceivers sabotaged Asians and Whites for succeeding in counterstereotypical domains, thereby preventing their future success. In Experiment 2, a White rapper suffered prejudice and economic discrimination, relative to a Black rapper, and prejudice mediated discrimination. Further, actors threatened by backlash for achievement in cross-racial domains responded to success in ways that bolster ethnic stereotypes. For example, Black men and women who feared backlash for academic skill (Experiment 3), and non-Black (Experiment 4) and non-White (Experiment 5) men who experienced backlash for cross-racial achievement, resorted to defensive strategies that preserve racial stereotypes (e.g., refusing to publicize and pursue counterstereotypical talents). Implications for cultural stereotype maintenance are discussed.
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Social Structure and Development: A Legacy of the Holocaust in Russia
Daron Acemoglu, Tarek Hassan & James Robinson
NBER Working Paper, June 2010
Abstract:
We document a statistical association between the severity of the persecution and mass murder of Jews (the Holocaust) by the Nazis during World War II and long-run economic and political outcomes within Russia. Cities that experienced the Holocaust most intensely have grown less, and cities as well as administrative districts (oblasts) where the Holocaust had the largest impact have worse economic and political outcomes since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although we cannot rule out the possibility that these statistical relationships are caused by other factors, the overall patterns appear generally robust. We provide evidence on one possible mechanism that we hypothesize may link the Holocaust to the present -- the change it induced in the social structure, in particular the size of the middle class, across different regions of Russia. Before World War II, Russian Jews were predominantly in white collar (middle class) occupations and the Holocaust appears to have had a large negative effect on the size of the middle class after the war.
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To be liked versus respected: Divergent goals in interracial interactions
Hilary Bergsieker, Nicole Shelton & Jennifer Richeson
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, August 2010, Pages 248-264
Abstract:
Pervasive representations of Blacks and Latinos as unintelligent and of Whites as racist may give rise to divergent impression management goals in interracial interactions. We present studies showing that in interracial interactions racial minorities seek to be respected and seen as competent more than Whites do, whereas Whites seek to be liked and seen as moral more than racial minorities do. These divergent impression management goals are reflected in Whites' and racial minorities' self-report responses (Studies 1a, 1b, 2, and 4) and behaviors (Studies 3a and 3b). Divergent goals are observed in pre-existing relationships (Study 2), as well as in live interactions (Studies 3a, 3b, and 4), and are associated with higher levels of negative other-directed affect (Study 4). Implications of these goals for interracial communication and misunderstandings are discussed.
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Gil Atzmon et al.
American Journal of Human Genetics, June 2010, Pages 850-859
Abstract:
For more than a century, Jews and non-Jews alike have tried to define the relatedness of contemporary Jewish people. Previous genetic studies of blood group and serum markers suggested that Jewish groups had Middle Eastern origin with greater genetic similarity between paired Jewish populations. However, these and successor studies of monoallelic Y chromosomal and mitochondrial genetic markers did not resolve the issues of within and between-group Jewish genetic identity. Here, genome-wide analysis of seven Jewish groups (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek, and Ashkenazi) and comparison with non-Jewish groups demonstrated distinctive Jewish population clusters, each with shared Middle Eastern ancestry, proximity to contemporary Middle Eastern populations, and variable degrees of European and North African admixture. Two major groups were identified by principal component, phylogenetic, and identity by descent (IBD) analysis: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews. The IBD segment sharing and the proximity of European Jews to each other and to southern European populations suggested similar origins for European Jewry and refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry. Rapid decay of IBD in Ashkenazi Jewish genomes was consistent with a severe bottleneck followed by large expansion, such as occurred with the so-called demographic miracle of population expansion from 50,000 people at the beginning of the 15th century to 5,000,000 people at the beginning of the 19th century. Thus, this study demonstrates that European/Syrian and Middle Eastern Jews represent a series of geographical isolates or clusters woven together by shared IBD genetic threads.
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The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people
Doron Behar et al.
Nature, 8 July 2010, Pages 238-242
Abstract:
Contemporary Jews comprise an aggregate of ethno-religious communities whose worldwide members identify with each other through various shared religious, historical and cultural traditions. Historical evidence suggests common origins in the Middle East, followed by migrations leading to the establishment of communities of Jews in Europe, Africa and Asia, in what is termed the Jewish Diaspora. This complex demographic history imposes special challenges in attempting to address the genetic structure of the Jewish people. Although many genetic studies have shed light on Jewish origins and on diseases prevalent among Jewish communities, including studies focusing on uniparentally and biparentally inherited markers, genome-wide patterns of variation across the vast geographic span of Jewish Diaspora communities and their respective neighbours have yet to be addressed. Here we use high-density bead arrays to genotype individuals from 14 Jewish Diaspora communities and compare these patterns of genome-wide diversity with those from 69 Old World non-Jewish populations, of which 25 have not previously been reported. These samples were carefully chosen to provide comprehensive comparisons between Jewish and non-Jewish populations in the Diaspora, as well as with non-Jewish populations from the Middle East and north Africa. Principal component and structure-like analyses identify previously unrecognized genetic substructure within the Middle East. Most Jewish samples form a remarkably tight subcluster that overlies Druze and Cypriot samples but not samples from other Levantine populations or paired Diaspora host populations. In contrast, Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) and Indian Jews (Bene Israel and Cochini) cluster with neighbouring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite a clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant. These results cast light on the variegated genetic architecture of the Middle East, and trace the origins of most Jewish Diaspora communities to the Levant.
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Michael Haines, Lee Craig & Thomas Weiss
Economics & Human Biology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The "Antebellum Puzzle" has been the subject of comment since the 1980s. It involves the paradox that, although the American economy was experiencing rapid economic growth in the several decades prior to the Civil War (1861-1865), the stature of native-born white males had been declining for the birth cohorts from the late 1820s. This was also true for free blacks (Komlos 1992), but was apparently not true for slaves. This paper uses a sample of 8,592 adult back males who were recruits to the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War. They were recruited significantly among ex-slaves. Recruits from the birth cohorts of 1838 to 1842 were then linked to characteristics of their counties of birth from the 1840 and 1850 U.S. Censuses. Unlike slaves in the coastal manifests, these African-American recruits showed evidence of a decline in heights from the birth cohorts of the 1820s onwards. Unlike the native-white recruits, however, the characteristics of their counties of birth had relatively less power in explaining differences in heights. There was some support for the mortality hypothesis, but the nutrition hypothesis needs to be interpreted in light of the fact that slave owners has a strong interest in monitoring and controlling the diet of their slaves.
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The Impact of Intermarriage on Ethnic Stratification: Jews in Israel
Barbara Okun & Orna Khait-Marelly
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate macro-level implications of ethnic/racial intermarriage in one generation on ethnic/racial inequality in the subsequent generation. In our theoretical model, ethnic intermarriage affects ethnic stratification through intergenerational transmissions of socioeconomic status and ethnicity. The effects of ethnic intermarriage depend on the association between ethnic intermarriage and socioeconomic status in the parents' generation, as well as the association between ethnic (self-)identification and socioeconomic status in the offspring generation. The model suggests that under plausible scenarios, intermarriage may increase socioeconomic gaps across ethnic groups. Thus, the model's predictions temper those of assimilation and melting pot theories, which suggest that ethnic intermarriage unequivocally reduces ethnic inequality. We then consider a case-study of ethnic inequality in educational attainment among Jews in Israel. Using record-linkage data on young, native-born Jewish adults from two Israeli Censuses, we are able to (1) quantify the effects of ethnic intermarriage on ethnic inequality in the offspring generation, via the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status; (2) consider the implications of various forms of ethnic (self-)identification among the offspring of intermarried couples; and (3) examine a period marking the onset of significant numbers of adult offspring of ethnic intermarriage. We investigate educational gaps that might have arisen in counterfactual scenarios in which ethnic intermarriage in the parents' generation had not occurred. Consistent with the theoretical model, we find that, under plausible assumptions about the ethnic (self-)identification of offspring of intermarried couples, ethnic intermarriage in the parents' generation substantially increases ethnic inequality among young adults in the offspring generation. In particular, if the offspring of ethnically intermarried couples (self-)identify as a function of their socioeconomic status, or, alternatively, as a distinct ethnic group, then ethnic intermarriage is likely to result in greater inequality in the offspring generation than in counterfactual scenarios in which ethnic intermarriage had not occurred. We thus demonstrate that ethnic intermarriage affects ethnic inequality in ways that are significantly more complex than those suggested by assimilation theories, We conclude that ethnic intermarriage should not necessarily be viewed as a vehicle for reducing group differences over time or for reducing the salience of ethnicity among disadvantaged ethnic groups.
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Who intermarries in Britain? Explaining ethnic diversity in intermarriage patterns
Raya Muttarak & Anthony Heath
British Journal of Sociology, June 2010, Pages 275-305
Abstract:
This paper investigates trends, patterns and determinants of intermarriage (and partnership) comparing patterns among men and women and among different ethnic groups in Britain. We distinguish between endogamous (co-ethnic), majority/minority and minority/minority marriages. Hypotheses are derived from the theoretical literatures on assimilation, segmented assimilation and opportunity structures. The empirical analysis is based on the 1988-2006 General Household Surveys (N = 115,494). Consistent with assimilation theory we find that, for all ethnic minority groups, the propensity to intermarry is higher in the second generation than in the first. Consistent with ideas drawn from segmented assimilation theory, we also find that substantial differences in propensity to form majority/minority marriages persist after controls for individual characteristics such as age, educational level, generation and length of residence in Britain, with men and women of Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi background having higher propensities to form endogamous partnerships. However, we also find that opportunity structures affect intermarriage propensities for all groups alike, with individuals in more diverse residential areas (as measured by the ratio of majority to minority residents in the area) having higher likelihood to form majority/minority partnerships. We conclude then that, beginning from very different starting points, all groups, both minority and the majority groups exhibit common patterns of generational change and response to opportunity structures. Even the groups that are believed to have the strongest community structures and the strongest norms supporting endogamy appear to be experiencing increasing exogamy in the second generation and in more diverse residential settings. This suggests that a weak rather than a strong version of segmented assimilation provides the best account of British patterns.
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Ethnic Minority-Majority Asymmetry in National Attitudes around the World: A Multilevel Analysis
Christian Staerklé, Jim Sidanius, Eva Green & Ludwin Molina
Political Psychology, August 2010, Pages 491-519
Abstract:
Using data from the International Social Survey Programme, this research investigated asymmetric attitudes of ethnic minorities and majorities towards their country and explored the impact of human development, ethnic diversity, and social inequality as country-level moderators of national attitudes. In line with the general hypothesis of ethnic asymmetry, we found that ethnic, linguistic, and religious majorities were more identified with the nation and more strongly endorsed nationalist ideology than minorities (H1, 33 countries). Multilevel analyses revealed that this pattern of asymmetry was moderated by country-level characteristics: the difference between minorities and majorities was greatest in ethnically diverse countries and in egalitarian, low inequality contexts. We also observed a larger positive correlation between ethnic subgroup identification and both national identification and nationalism for majorities than for minorities (H2, 20 countries). A stronger overall relationship between ethnic and national identification was observed in countries with a low level of human development. The greatest minority-majority differences in the relationship between ethnic identification and national attitudes were found in egalitarian countries with a strong welfare state tradition.
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Staying Alive: Genetics in the Service of the Welfare "People's Home"
Alberto Spektorowski & Liza Ireni-Saban
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article aims to contribute to the ongoing debate over population politics and the perceived reinvigoration of eugenic practices in "people's home" countries. The ability of governments to subsidize genetic technologies or familial lifestyle choices also gives them the ability to choose who has access to these technologies and in so doing the ability to favor the procreation of one group over another. The authors suggest that such subsidization is used under the guise of productivist strategies by nations interested first and foremost in preserving their ethno-national identity. Although these countries, adhering to liberal democratic economics, profess to reward productivity, there seems to be more than a coincidental relationship between the "productive" and the ethnic national stock. The authors use as a case study a comparison between Israel and Sweden to show how such eugenic strategies arose over time in people's home countries that synthesized productivism and national welfare. They suggest that genetics today is just as prone to being used for purposes of social engineering in welfare states and results in exclusion of individuals and communities. Indeed, as the authors demonstrate, welfare states provide generous benefits such as reproductive technology and child allowances to members of their national stock, at the same time hardly providing benefits to those who do not have share in ethnic membership.