What Was America Thinking: Social Identity, Race, and the 2016 Presidential Election
Date
2018
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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Award
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eng
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Tri-College users only
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Abstract
Social identity, or our understanding of who we are is based on the groups we are a part of and is central to how we interact with the world. Theories of social identity and group behavior determine which groups’ people identify most strongly with and in what contexts these identities are strongest. The ways in which we try to protect these positive group identities, in turn, affect how we behave. At its worst, our group identities can result in out-group bias in the form of discrimination or racism. These group identities can also influence our behavior from a personal to a political level. This paper examines the ways in which racial identities affected the voter turnout and results of the 2016 presidential election. To conclude, it attempts to explain what the literature on social identity misses and gets right about political behavior in order to understand what should happen in future elections. It also explores the ways we can reduce in-group bias to avoid voter behavior based purely off of group identity in future elections.