Are your cross-ethnic friends ethnic and/or national group identifiers?The role of own and perceived cross-ethnic friend's identities on outgroup attitudes and multiculturalism

Abstract

We investigated how own ethnic and national identities and perceived ethnic and national identities of close cross-ethnic friends may predict outgroup attitudes and multiculturalism among Turkish (majority status, N=197) and Kurdish (minority status, N=80) ethnic group members in Turkey (M-age=21.12, SD=2.59, 69.7% females, 30.3% males). Compared with Turkish participants, Kurdish participants were more asymmetrical in rating their cross-ethnic friend's identities relative to their own, reporting higher ethnic identity, but lower national identity for themselves. Own ethnic identity was negatively associated with attitudes and multiculturalism, whereas own national identity was positively associated with only attitudes. Perceived cross-ethnic friend's national identity was positively related to both outgroup attitudes and multiculturalism. Shared national identification (high levels of own and friend's national identity) led to most positive outgroup attitudes and highest support for multiculturalism. Findings were discussed in the light of social identity and common ingroup identity models.