My Fellow Americans: Understanding Identification with Arab Americans

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" My Fellow Americans: Understanding Identification with Arab Americans "
Saffaf, Falak Harvey, Richard D.

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	1054237
Doc. No	:	TL53354
Main Entry	:	Saffaf, Falak
Title & Author	:	My Fellow Americans: Understanding Identification with Arab Americans\ Saffaf, FalakHarvey, Richard D.
College	:	Saint Louis University
Date	:	2020
Degree	:	Ph.D.
student score	:	2020
Note	:	80 p.
Abstract	:	Arab Americans are categorized as White on the U.S. Census, but are not socially treated as White Americans. While Arab Americans may not desire a White identity, they desire to be recognized as fellow Americans who belong in the U.S. There is little to no research attempting to understand general American identification with Arab Americans. The current research developed a balance theory model of general American identification with Arab Americans. U.S. citizens (N = 229) completed a two time-point longitudinal survey on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Moderated mediation analysis revealed that greater perceptions of Arab Americans as terrorists (T1) were associated with greater prejudice towards Arab Americans (T2). The relationship was moderated by the degree to which participants perspective-take with terrorists (T1), where lower perspective taking strengthens the relationship. Finally, the relationship was also mediated by participant identification with Arab Americans. When participants believe Arab Americans are associated with terrorists, they identify with Arab Americans less (i.e., the friend of my enemy is my enemy), which leads to greater Arab American prejudice. Exploratory qualitative analyses are also discussed. The study provides another form of support for the notion that group-based prejudice is the result of conflation of those groups with negative attributes (e.g., Arab Americans associated with terrorists). This research may be leveraged to encouraged identification with Arab Americans to aid acceptance of this minority group.
Descriptor	:	Middle Eastern studies
	:	Psychology
	:	Social psychology
Added Entry	:	Harvey, Richard D.
Added Entry	:	Saint Louis University