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Sidanius, James

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Sidanius

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Sidanius, James
Author's Publications: search.filters.isAuthorOfPublication.22391f8d-d6da-4397-ab60-efd87a5f4fa3

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    Individual differences in relational motives interact with the political context to produce terrorism and terrorism-support
    (Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2014) Thomsen, Lotte; Obaidl, Milan; Sheehy-Skeffington, Jennifer Anne; Kteily, Nour; Sidanius, James
    The psychology of suicide terrorism involves more than simply the psychology of suicide. Individual differences in Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) interact with socio-structural, political context to produce support for group-based dominance among members of both dominant and subordinate groups. This may help explain why, in one specific context, some people commit and endorse terrorism, while others do not.
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    Social Dominance Orientation: Revisiting the Structure and Function of a Variable Predicting Social and Political Attitudes
    (SAGE Publications, 2012) Ho, A. K.; Sidanius, James; Pratto, F.; Levin, S.; Thomsen, Lotte; Kteily, N.; Sheehy-Skeffington, J.
    Social dominance orientation (SDO) is one of the most powerful predictors of intergroup attitudes and behavior. Although SDO works well as a unitary construct, some analyses suggest it might consist of two complementary dimensions—SDO-Dominance (SDO-D), or the preference for some groups to dominate others, and SDO-Egalitarianism (SDO-E), a preference for nonegalitarian intergroup relations. Using seven samples from the United States and Israel, the authors confirm factor-analytic evidence and show predictive validity for both dimensions. In the United States, SDO-D was theorized and found to be more related to old-fashioned racism, zero-sum competition, and aggressive intergroup phenomena than SDO-E; SDO-E better predicted more subtle legitimizing ideologies, conservatism, and opposition to redistributive social policies. In a contentious hierarchical intergroup context (the Israeli–Palestinian context), SDO-D better predicted both conservatism and aggressive intergroup attitudes. Fundamentally, these analyses begin to establish the existence of complementary psychological orientations underlying the preference for group-based dominance and inequality.
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    Assimilation, multiculturalism, and colorblindness: Mediated and moderated relationships between social dominance orientation and prejudice
    (Elsevier BV, 2012) Levin, Shana; Matthews, Miriam; Guimond, Serge; Sidanius, James; Pratto, Felicia; Kteily, Nour; Pitpitan, Eileen V.; Dover, Tessa
    Using correlational and experimental data, we examined the degree to which personal and perceived normative support for the acculturation ideologies of assimilation, multiculturalism, and colorblindness mediated and moderated the relationship between social dominance orientation (SDO) and prejudice among 299 White students at three American colleges. Correlational results indicated that personal support for the acculturation ideologies mediated the SDO–prejudice relationship. Personal support for assimilation (a hierarchy-enhancing ideology) positively related to SDO; multiculturalism and colorblindness (hierarchy-attenuating ideologies) negatively related to SDO. An experimental manipulation varied whether assimilation, multiculturalism, or colorblindness was considered normative in the United States. In addition to a control, a fifth condition primed the Obama presidency. SDO related most strongly to prejudice toward American immigrants and ethnic minorities when assimilation norms and the Obama presidency were primed. Efforts to reduce the associations between SDO and prejudice are discussed in terms of highlighting hierarchy-attenuating national norms of multiculturalism and colorblindness.
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    Why Men (and Women) Do and Don't Rebel: Effects of System Justification on Willingness to Protest
    (SAGE Publications, 2011) Jost, J. T.; Chaikalis-Petritsis, V.; Abrams, D.; Sidanius, James; van der Toorn, J.; Bratt, C.
    Three studies examined the hypothesis that system justification is negatively associated with collective protest against ingroup disadvantage. Effects of uncertainty salience, ingroup identification, and disruptive versus nondisruptive protest were also investigated. In Study 1, college students who were exposed to an uncertainty salience manipulation and who scored higher on system justification were less likely to protest against the governmental bailout of Wall Street. In Study 2, May Day protesters in Greece who were primed with a system-justifying stereotype exhibited less group-based anger and willingness to protest. In Study 3, members of a British teachers union who were primed with a “system-rejecting” mind-set exhibited decreased system justification and increased willingness to protest. The effect of system justification on nondisruptive protest was mediated by group-based anger. Across very different contexts, measures, and methods, the results reveal that, even among political activists, system justification plays a significant role in undermining willingness to protest.
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    Social dominance orientation: Cause or ‘mere effect’?
    (Elsevier BV, 2011) Kteily, Nour S.; Sidanius, James; Levin, Shana
    The question of whether SDO is a cause or mere effect of intergroup attitudes and behaviors has been the subject of heated debate. Much of the research brought to bear on the question, however, has used cross-sectional data that is not best-suited for making causal inferences. Using data from a panel study that tracked UCLA undergraduates over several years, we find support for the notion that SDO is a cause, rather than ‘mere reflection’ of prejudice and discrimination against outgroups. Specifically, using cross-lagged analyses among White students, we show that SDO measured in 1996 has significant marginal utility for predicting prejudice against a series of ethnic outgroups, as well as self-reported ingroup friendship preference, four years later, controlling for their 1996 levels. Conversely, outgroup affect and ingroup friendship preference measured in 1996 fail to predict SDO levels in 2000 once 1996 SDO levels are taken into account. Implications of these analyses for the debate on the interpretation of SDO as a relatively stable orientation towards group-based hierarchy in society are discussed.
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    Evidence for hypodescent and racial hierarchy in the categorization and perception of biracial individuals.
    (American Psychological Association (APA), 2011) Ho, Arnold K.; Sidanius, James; Levin, Daniel T.; Banaji, Mahzarin
    Individuals who qualify equally for membership in two racial groups provide a rare window into social categorization and perception. In 5 experiments, we tested the extent to which a rule of hypodescent, whereby biracial individuals are assigned the status of their socially subordinate parent group, would govern perceptions of Asian–White and Black–White targets. In Experiment 1, in spite of posing explicit questions concerning Asian–White and Black–White targets, hypodescent was observed in both cases and more strongly in Black–White social categorization. Experiments 2A and 2B used a speeded response task and again revealed evidence of hypodescent in both cases, as well as a stronger effect in the Black–White target condition. In Experiments 3A and 3B, social perception was studied with a face-morphing task. Participants required a face to be lower in proportion minority to be perceived as minority than in proportion White to be perceived as White. Again, the threshold for being perceived as White was higher for Black–White than for Asian–White targets. An independent categorization task in Experiment 3B further confirmed the rule of hypodescent and variation in it that reflected the current racial hierarchy in the United States. These results documenting biases in the social categorization and perception of biracials have implications for resistance to change in the American racial hierarchy.
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    Ethnic Minority-Majority Asymmetry in National Attitudes around the World: A Multilevel Analysis
    (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) Staerklé, Christian; Sidanius, James; Green, Eva G. T.; Molina, Ludwin E.
    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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    Racial identity and depression among African American women.
    (American Psychological Association (APA), 2010) Settles, Isis H.; Navarrete, Carlos David; Pagano, Sabrina J.; Abdou, Cleopatra M.; Sidanius, James
    This study examines direct, interactive, and indirect effects of racial identity and depression in a sample of 379 African American women. Results indicated that higher racial private and public regard were associated with lower depression. The relationship between private regard and depression was moderated by racial centrality, such that higher private regard was more strongly related to lower depression when women’s race was a central part of their self-concept. Finally, results indicated that self-esteem fully mediated the relationship between private regard and depression and partially mediated the relationship between public regard and depression. The authors discuss the results in relation to reflected appraisal, the insulation hypothesis, and identity theory.
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    Prejudice at the nexus of race and gender: An outgroup male target hypothesis.
    (American Psychological Association (APA), 2010) Navarrete, Carlos David; McDonald, Melissa M.; Molina, Ludwin E.; Sidanius, James
    Adopting an evolutionary approach to the psychology of race bias, we posit that intergroup conflict perpetrated by male aggressors throughout human evolutionary history has shaped the psychology of modern forms of intergroup bias and that this psychology reflects the unique adaptive problems that differ between men and women in coping with male aggressors from groups other than one’s own. Here we report results across 4 studies consistent with this perspective, showing that race bias is moderated by gender differences in traits relevant to threat responses that differ in their adaptive utility between the sexes—namely, aggression and dominance motives for men and fear of sexual coercion for women. These results are consistent with the notion that the psychology of intergroup bias is generated by different psychological systems for men and women, and the results underscore the importance of considering the gender of the outgroup target as well as the gender of the agent in psychological studies on prejudice and discrimination.
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    A Longitudinal Test of the Model of Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition
    (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) Matthews, Miriam; Levin, Shana; Sidanius, James
    Using data from a longitudinal study of college students, this study assessed the relationships among the threat perceptions of realistic threat and intergroup anxiety, the ideological motives of system justification and social dominance orientation (SDO), and political conservatism. Those who had higher perceptions of realistic threat and intergroup anxiety at the end of their first year of college showed higher levels of system justification and SDO at the end of their second and third years of college, controlling for precollege expressions of each variable. Higher levels of these two ideological motives at the end of students’ second and third years of college were associated with more politically conservative attitudes at the end of students’ fourth year of college, again controlling for precollege expressions. These longitudinal results are discussed in terms of a model of political conservatism as motivated social cognition.