21 - Racial Identity and Experimental Methodology

Summary

Interest in how social group attachments translate into political attitudes and behavior motivated much of the early attention to social identity. According to Tajfel (1981), the underlying foundation in the development of political and social beliefs was “the shared perceptions of social reality by large numbers of people and of the conditions leading to these shared perceptions” (15), as opposed to personality and environmental characteristics. Although Tajfel was not referencing the forces that make one's racial identity relevant to an individual, but instead focused on the development of social identity around the prejudice toward Jews, racial identity (at least in regard to political and social behavior research) has been among the most powerful explanations of behavior. Despite the multitude of identities a person may possess and the events that make such identities more or less salient, social identity theory has had special insight and significance into the connection between racial identity and political behavior. In the field of political behavior, no form of identity has received nearly the amount of attention and scrutiny as racial identity (e.g., group consciousness, racial consciousness, linked fate, race identification).

At the same time, however, research on racial identity and political behavior could benefit from adherence to the conceptual foundations of social identity theory, as well as from greater reliance on experimental research. Several problems exist in the conceptual development and measurement of racial identity research that beg out for a reexamination of racial identity.