The interface between ethnic and national attachment ethnic pluralism or ethnic dominance

Thus, within the group dominance perspective, the following two types of asymmetry should apply: first, the degree of attachment to the nation should be stronger for members of dominant

The Interface Between Ethnic and National Attachment: Ethnic Pluralism or

Ethnic Dominance?

Jim Sidanius, Seymour Feshbach, Shana Levin, Felicia Pratto

Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 61, Issue 1, Special Issue on Race (Spring, 1997),

102-133

Stable URL:

Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you

have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and

you may use content in the ISTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or

printed page of such transmission

Public Opinion Quarterly is published by The University of Chicago Press Please contact the publisher for further

permissions regarding the use of this work Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www jstor.org/journals/ucpress.html

Public Opinion Quarterly

©1997 The University of Chicago Press

ISTOR and the ISTOR logo are trademarks of ISTOR, and are Registered in the U.S Patent and Trademark Office

For more information on ISTOR contact jstor-info@umich.edu

©2002 ISTOR

http://www jstor.org/

Thu Mar 14 09:41:23 2002

ETHNIC PLURALISM OR ETHNIC

JIM SIDANIUS is professor of psychology, SEYMOUR FESHBACH is professor of paychol- ogy; and SHANA LEVIN is postdoctoral researcher of psychology, all at University af Cali- fornia, Los Angeles FELICIA PRATTO is assistant professor of psychology at Stanford Uni- versity The authors would like to thank Lawrence Bobo and David Sears for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this article Correspondence concerning this article should

be addressed to Jim Sidanius, Department of Psychalogy, UCLA, Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563 Electronic mail may be sent to sidanius@ psych.ucla.edu

1 One problem in using these labels is the varied connotations they may have, particularly

in the case of nationalism as used by historians and political scientists (see, e.g., Citrin et

al 1994) One could use a symbol such as factor P to denate love of country and factor

N to denote desire for national superiority However, to maintain continuity with earlier studies, we are retaining these labels

Public Opinion Quarterly Volume 61:102-133 © 1997 by the American Association for Public Opivion Research All eights reserved 0033-362X/97/6101-0006902.50

Ethnic and National Attachment 103

events question whether it is possible to foster loyalty to and identification with ong’s own ethnic particularism and, at the same time, maintain shared national values and a sense of common national identification In thinking more deeply about the interface between ethnic and national identity,’ there are roughly three general perspectives one might use: (a) the melting pot perspective, (b) the multicultural or ethnic pluralism perspective, and (c) the ‘‘group dominance’’ perspective.’

Although there are several societies that might be classified as melting pot nations (e.g., Brazil and the former USSR), the United States has often been regarded as the most successful example of the ideal melting pot Within this perspective, one’s original ethnic background is regarded as largely irrelevant to one's acceptability as a loyal citizen of standing within the nation-state In a recent essay on the African American experi- ence, Hertzberg and Gates (1996) come close to describing the melting pot ethos and its applicability to immigrants to America from many different countries They write: ‘‘Throwing off subordination to a distant throne, they (the immigrants) made a commonwealth, the first in history to be founded explicitly on principles of self-government and political equal- ity’’ (pp 9-10)

If this melting pot ideal can actually provide an accurate description

of the interface between ethnic and national identity, we would expect the interface between ethnic and national attachment to conform to the following two patterns First, the degree of attachment to the nation should

be equal for all ethnic groups Second, regardless of the ethnic group one belongs to, one’s attachment to the nation as a whole should be either independent of attachment to one’s original ethnic particularism or, if re- lated at all, it should be negatively associated with one’s ethnic loyalty Most important, however, if the interface between ethnic and national identity should prove to be negative, it should be equally negative for all ethnic particularisms In other words, regardless of which ethnic subgroup

2 In this discussion, we will use the terms “‘ethnic’’ and “‘ethnicity”’ to refer ¢o all the socially constructed distinctions usually referenced by the terms “‘ethnicity"’ and “race.”” While we recognize some of the shortcomings af this usage, we feel that using the term

“ethnic’’ for some group distinctions and “‘racial"’ for other group distinctions is even more problematic For example, while a number of people might consider the distinction between Buro-Americans and Latina Americans, or between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs

to be “‘racial’’ distinctions, others would argue equally forcefully that these are purely psychological or “‘ethnic’’ distinctions Perhaps the most valid means of referring to these group distinctions would be as psychologically salient, social constructions However, in lieu of using this rather clumsy expression, we will simply use the term ‘ethnic’? through-

‘out our discussion here

3 For two more articulated thearetical models consistent with a derivative of the general group dominance perspective, see Blumer's (1961) group positions theory and social domi- nance theory (Sidanius 1993).

one is a member of, the greater the loyalty one feels to this subgroup, the less loyalty one should feel to the nation as a whole

The “‘ethnic pluralism’’ ideal has become increasingly popular since the 1960s and replaces the *‘melting pot’’ metaphor with that of the ‘‘salad bowl”’ or ‘‘glorious mosaic’’ metaphor Although there are some varia- tions in the precise manner in which ethnic pluralism is defined (e.g., Simpson 1995), the construct has essentially come to imply that (2) rather than dissolving into a unitary ethnicity of nationhood, ethnic subgroups continue to maintain their distinctiveness, (b) all of these ethnic subgroups are considered coequal partners in society, where no one group dominates any other group, and (c) individuals can simultaneously maintain a posi- tive commitment both to an ethnic particularism and to the larger political community These dual commitments should be seen as complementary loyalties, where commitment to one identity in fact helps cement and rein- force commitment to the other identity If the pluralist model is true, as with the melting pot model, we should find that the degree of attachment

to the nation should be the same across all ethnic groups However, unlike the melting pot model, the pluralist model implies that there should be a positive relationship between one’s attachment to the nation as a whole and one’s attachment to one’s ethnic background Moreover, this positive relationship should apply to members of all ethnic groups and not just to members of dominant groups alone (for related discussion, see also Berry, Kalin, and Taylor 1977, Lambert, Mermigis, and Taylor 1986, Moghad- dam and Taylor 1987; Sears et al 1994; Takaki 1993)

In one of the very few empirical studies in this area, de la Garza, Falcon, and Garcia (1996) found data that generally supported the pluralist argu- ment The de la Garza team studied the correlation between patriotism and ‘‘ethnic consciousness’ using a national survey of Mexican Ameri- cans These data seem to indicate that (1) Mexican Americans were no less patriotic than Euro-Americans and, if anything, (2) there was a posi- tive rather than negative relationship between attachment to one’s Mexi- can American heritage and attachment to the nation as a whole De la Garza, Falcon, and Garcia (1996) concluded that in the United States, commitment to ethnicity is not an instrument for the ‘‘disuniting of America,”’ but rather ‘‘American ethnics use ethnicity to create resources such as group solidarity and political organizations to facilitate their full participation in American society’’ (p 337; emphasis added) This notion

of a positive-sum relationship between one’s national and ethnic commit- ment can also be seen in the writings and numerous speeches of General Colin Powell Not only was General Powell the first black head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in American history but he is also widely regarded

as the very embodiment of the American dream In discussing the issue

of race and American society in his autobiography, My American Journey

Ethnic and National Attachment 105

(1995), Powell writes, ““My blackness has been a source of pride, strength and inspiration, and so has my being an American’? (pp 534-35) The ‘‘group dominance’’ approach leads one to expect a very different type of interface between ethnic and national attachment than is derivable from either the melting pot or pluralist perspectives According to the group dominance approach, multiethnic states usually come into being as

a result of the conquest of one ethnic group by another As a result, the dominant or conquering group regards itself as having preeminent right

to and ownership of the nation, its resources, and its symbols In extreme cases, membership in a particular ethnic group automatically confers citi- zenship in a particular “‘nation.’’ One clear example of this is the Israeli

“Law of Return,”’ where Israeli nationality is automatically conferred by virtue of one’s being Jewish, regardless of where one was born (see Kret- zmer 1990) While Israeli Arabs (who constitute approximately 18 percent

of the Israeli population) and other ethnic minorities are granted equal rights under Israeli law, there is a wide net of both de jure and de facto restrictions placed upon their legal and social rights (see Kretzmer 1990)

This group dominance perspective implies that in group-based, hierar- chically structured societies such as Israel, national identity, or a sense

of ‘‘belongingness’’ to the nation as a whole, will be more strongly and positively associated with membership in dominant ethnic groups and less strongly associated with membership in subordinate groups Thus, within the group dominance perspective, the following two types of asymmetry should apply: first, the degree of attachment to the nation should be stronger for members of dominant groups than for members of subordi- nate groups; second, the correlation between one’s attachment to one’s ethnic group and one’s attachment to the nation as a whole should be more positive for people within dominant groups than for people within subordinate groups These two asymmetries should apply in all multieth- nic states that are structured as group-based social hierarchies Because multiethnic states tend to be hierarchically organized, we expect these two asymmetries to apply widely—not just in the very clear Israeli case but

in the United States as well

Even though the United States is generally cited as an example of either

a melting pot or pluralist society (see, e.g., de Ia Garza, Falcon, and Garcia 1996), one could also make a strong argument that the United States falls within the purview of the group dominance perspective.‘ While there has

4 The European conquest of the New World started around 1540 and ended as late as

1890 (see, e.g., Stannard 1992) In the process of this conquest, a system of chattel slavery was introduced and lasted more than two hundred years, followed by more than one hun- dred years of racial apartheid America's first citizenship statute, passed in 1790, limited naturalization to “aliens being free white persons.” Though black men were granted de

been effort to extend political and legal equality to America’s ethnic mi- norities, the United States still clearly exemplifies a hierarchically struc- tured system of ethnic groups (see, e.g., Smith 1991; Steinberg 1989) Although the United States has always been a multiethnic society, its laws and other cultural practices have used ethnicity as one of the main bases

of social identity and social privilege Because of this history of oppres- sion, the group dominance perspective would expect members of the dom- inant ethnic group, namely, Euro-Americans, to feel greater ownership of and attachment to the nation than members of subordinate ethnic groups, and also to manifest a stronger positive relationship between ethnic and national attachment than members of subordinate groups

In order to test the applicability of the melting pot, pluralist, and group dominance models in a more comprehensive fashion than has been at- tempted in the past, we shall examine the interface between ethnic and national attachment in both Israel and the United States We will examine this interface with respect to two different dimensions of national attach- ment Factor analytic work by Feshbach and his colleagues has demon- strated an empirical distinction between two major types of national at- tachment The first major dimension, called nationalism, can be regarded

as a ‘‘right-wing’’ form of national attachment and concerns the desire for the dominance of one’s own nation over others This form of national attachment can be seen in expansionist doctrines such as those expressed

by the slogans ‘‘Rule, Britannia,”’ ‘“‘Lebensraum,’’ and ‘‘Manifest Des- tiny.’ The second and more politically neutral form of national attach- ment, called patriotism, concerns one’s love of country and its major sym- bols (see Feshbach 1987, 1991, 1992, 1994; Feshbach and Sakano, in press; Kosterman and Feshbach 1989).5

Using data from several different ethnic groups in Israel and the United States, we will examine the interface between ethnic and national attach- ment in three stages First, using identical measures, we will compare the interface between ethnic identity and the two major types of national attachment (i.¢., patriotism and nationalism) among two groups of Israeli students (i.e., Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs) and two groups of American students (i.e., Euro-Americans and African Americans) In the second stage of this study, we will take a more in-depth look at the ethnic attachment/national attachment interface using a university sample of the four major ethnic groups in Southern California, namely, Euro-Ameri- cans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and African Americans In the jure citizenship rights by the Fourteenth Amendment, the 1790 naturalizatian law stood until 1952 As Jate as the 1940s, this law forced nonwhite petitioners to prove that they were ‘‘white’’ in order to be granted citizenship in the United States

5 This definition of ‘‘patriotism’’ comes very close to the standard manner in which the construct is defined See, e.g., the American Heritage Dictionary’s definition of patriotism:

“Love of and devotion to one’s country.'”

Ethnic and National Attachment 107

final stage of the study, we will examine the generalizability of any find- ings wenmight discover within the Israeli and American student samples, using an American national probability sample of Euro-Americans, Latino Americans, and African Americans

Method: Sample J, U.S Student Sample

The students were given an extensive questionnaire primarily assessing their attitudes concerning ethnic attachment and feelings of national at- tachment and racism, and a scale measuring generalized group dominance (ie., the social dominance orientation scale; see Pratto et al 1994) These various measures were grouped into three conceptual clusters: (4} 4 na- tional attachment cluster, (b) a group attachment cluster, and (c) a group dominance cluster

VARIABLES IN THE U.S STUDENT SAMPLE:

NATIONAL ATTACHMENT CLUSTER

We used several items from Kosterman and Feshbach’s (1989) national attitudes instrument in developing our 21-item national attachment scale (see table 1) The response scales for all items ranged from 1—‘‘Strongly disagree/disapprove’’ to 7—~“‘Strongly agree/favor.’’ All of the items were coded so that a high score represents a strong degree of national attachment

Work by Kosterman and Feshbach (1989) and others gave us strong reason to believe that there are several distinct subdimensions of national attachment To confirm this, we performed a principal factors analysis, rotated to Oblimin simple structure (6 = 0.00) We extracted the four

Table 1 Items of National Attachment (Used in the Comprehensive American Analyses)

I The more the United States actively influences other countries, the hetter off these countries will be

2 To maintain our country’s superiority, war is sometimes necessary

3 For the most part, America is no more superior than any other

industrialized country in the world

4 To maintain our country’s economic superiority, aggressive economic policies are sometimes necessary

5 The USA should xor dominate other countries

6 In general, Americans are wonderful people

7 [feel very warmly towards my countrymen

8 I do not care for most ather Americans

9 Mast other Americans are not worth caring about

10 Every time I hear the national anthem, I feel strongly moved

11 I find the sight of the American flag very moving

12 The American flag should oz be treated as a sacred object

13 The symbals of the United States (e.g., the flag, Washington monument}

do not move me one way or the other

14 I would really not want to move to another country

15 I have warm feelings for the place where I grew up

16 I feel no differently about the place I grew up than any other place

17 I would be willing to leave the United States for goad

18 I have great love for my country

19 T am proud to be an American

20 There is nothing particularly wonderful about American culture

21, [don’t fee] much affection for the United States

most important and interpretable dimensions, which together accounted for 58.8 percent of the total variance (see table 2) In order of importance, these factors were interpreted as follows:

Patriotism (36.2 percent of total variance) was primarily defined by those items embracing love for and respect of the nation and its symbols (e.g., “*I ñnd the sight of the American flag very moving,”’ ‘‘I have great love for my country’’) This dimension embraces the essential elements

of Kosterman and Feshbach’s (1989) patriotism dimension and standard dictionary definitions of the term

Nationalism (9.5 percent of total variance) is strongly reminiscent of Kosterman and Feshbach's (1989) factor of nationalism and embraces the desire for national dominance and superiority over other countries (e.g.,

“To maintain our country’s superiority, war is sometimes necesgary’’) Attachment to place (7.3 percent of total variance) expresses subjects’ emotional attachment to the nation as a physical place and the place they

grew up (e.g., ‘‘I feel no differently about the place I grew up than any other place’’)

Concern for co-nationals (5.8 percent of total variance) is the smallest dimension and embraces subjects’ concern for the American people rather than for the nation as a symbolic entity or emotional attachment to place (e.g., “I feel very warmly toward my countrymen’)

Inspection of table 2 shows that all of these dimensions were signifi- cantly and positively correlated with one another When nationalism and patriotism are compared across the Israeli and American samples, only those items that were administered to both samples are used.*

VARIABLES IN THE U.S STUDENT SAMPLE:

GROUP ATTACHMENT CLUSTER

We used five different measures of ethnic group attachment Unless other- wise indicated, all variables were measured on a 7-point Likert scale The variables were as follows:

In-group identification was defined by use of four items measuring the degree to which respondents thought of themselves as members of and identified with their own ethnic groups The four items were: (1) “‘How strongly do you identify with other members of your ethnic group?’’ (2) ‘‘How important is your ethnicity to your identity?’ (3)? How often

do you think of yourself as a member of your ethnic group?” and (4) ‘How close do you feel to other members of your ethnic group?”* (œ = 88) This series of questions directly followed a question asking the subjects to classify themselves into one of several ethnic categories Group boundary maintenance was operationalized as the degree to which subjects opposed (1) interracial dating and (2) interracial marriage Although related to classical racism, research has shown that this dimen- sion is still distinct from classical racism (see, e.g., Brigham, Wood- mansee, and Cook 1976; reliability: @ = 97)

In-group preference was designed to assess the degree to which sub- jects had a more positive affective response to their own ethnic in-group

in comparison to the ethnic out-group/s All subjects were asked to ‘‘indi- cate how positively or negatively you feel toward the following groups.”* The groups were described as ‘‘Whites/Euro-Americans,’’ ‘‘Blacks/Afti- can Americans,’’ ‘‘Asians/Asian Americans,’’ and ‘‘Latinos/Chicanos.’’ For members of minority groups, this variable was simply defined as in- group affect minus affect toward whites For whites, on the other hand, this variable was defined as affect toward whites (i.¢., the in-group) minus the average affect felt toward all three minority groups (i.e., blacks, Latinos, and Asians)

6 The precise patriotism/nationalism items used are described in the Israeli section below.

Ethnic and National Attachment tlt

In the Israeli/American comparisons, for Euro-Americans in-group preference was defined as affect toward whites minus affect toward blacks; for African Americans in-group preference was defined as affect toward blacks minus affect toward whites Therefore, in both cases posi- tive scores indicate favoritism toward the in-group and negative scores indicate favoritism toward the out-group

In-group mobilization measured the degree to which subjects were will- ing to engage in political activity on behalf of their own ethnic group The stem question read: ‘‘How seriously have you considered participating in the following activities on behalf of your ethnic group?’’ The activities were: (1) “Join an ethnic/activist student or community organization,” (2) ‘Participate in demonstrations,’’ (3) ‘‘Sign petitions,’’ (4) ‘‘Send let- ters to government officials and organizations,’ (5) ‘‘Go door to door or telephone to enlist public support,’’ (6) ‘Engage in physical confrontation with the police/government authorities,’’ (7) ‘“Engage in civil disobedi- ence’’ (a = 90)

Experienced discrimination measured perceived ethnic discrimination using two items: (1) ‘I experience discrimination because of my eth- nicity’’ and (2) ‘‘Other members of my ethnic group experience discrimi- nation’’ (œ = 84)

Generalized group attachment To see if all five measures of ethnic attachment were converging upon a common core, we performed correla- tion and confirmatory factor analyses on these indices The results showed that all of the group attachment variables were significantly correlated with one another In addition, a maximum likelihood LISREL confirma- tory factor analysis also revealed that all five group attachment indices had a substantial and statistically significant loading upon a single hypoth- esized latent construct Factor scores on this Generalized Group Attach- ment measure were generated for all subjects and used in the subsequent analyses

VARIABLES IN THE U.S STUDENT SAMPLE:

GROUP DOMINANCE CLUSTER

Because of our interest in the general group dominance perspective, we also used two measures of general group dominance: classical racism and social dominance orientation

Classical racism was operationalized by use of 10 items: (1) ‘‘Blacks are inherently inferior,’’ (2) ‘‘Chicanos/Latinos are inherently inferior.’’ The subjects were also asked to rate several attributions for the lower standard of living among Latinos and African Americans The attributions were: (3) ‘‘Blacks are less intellectually able than other groups,’’ (4) “Blacks have poor schools and live in bad neighborhoods’ (teverse-coded), (5) “‘Blacks suffer from past racism’’ (reverse-coded),

(6) ““Blacks are lazier than other groups,’ (7) ‘“Latinas are less intellectu- ally able than other groups,’’ (8) ‘‘Latinos have poor schools and live in bad neighborhoods’’ (reverse-coded), (9) ‘‘Latinos suffer from past rac- ism”’ (reverse-coded), and (10) ‘‘Latinos are lazier than other groups.'? These 10 items showed themselves to be highly homogeneous (a = 82) Social dominance orientation (SDO) is a 16-item measure of the degree

to which one desires hierarchical relationships among groups in society (@ = 89) This is a normally distributed individual difference variable that has been found to have high construct validity across several different cultures (see Levin and Sidanius 1995; Pratto et al 1996) For a detailed discussion of the SDO construct and the scale’s reliability and validity, see Pratto et al (1994)

Although SDO is conceptually defined in much broader terms than is classical racism, they still share the notion that certain groups are superior

to others and can therefore both be considered indices of ‘‘group domi- nance’ (r = 50)

Method: Sample 2, Israeli Student Sample

PARTICIPANTS

Data in Israel were collected from two different nonprobability samples

of undergraduate students surveyed in 1994: one sample of Israeli Jews from Hebrew University, Bar-Ilan University, Haifa University, and the Technion University and one sample of Israeli Arabs from Hebrew Uni- versity and Haifa University Questionnaires were administered in He- brew to 711 Jews, among them 269 males and 434 females Question- naires were administered in Arabic to 181 Israeli Arabs, among them 64 males and 116 females Data for the Jewish sample and part of the Arab sample were collected in university classrooms where the instructors’ per- mission was given, and a portion of the Arab sample was collected from students in dormitories at Hebrew University and on buses traveling to Haifa University The survey instruments were translated from English into Hebrew and Arabic and then back-translated to correct any errors in translation

VARIABLES IN THE ISRAELI STUDENT SAMPLE

There were only a few variables used in the Israeli sample that were equiv- alent to those used in the American sample We had measures of patrio- tism, nationalism, SDO, in-group identification, and in-group preference for 366 Jews and 181 Israeli Arabs

Patriotism and nationalism The Israeli sample contained two items

Ethnic and National Attachment II3

measuring patriotism that were identical to those used in the U.S sample These two patriotism items were: (1) ‘‘I have great love for my country”? and (2) ‘I am proud to be an Israeli.’? Despite the short length of this patriotism scale, it was still found to have a substantial degree of reliability (Gœ = 94) There was only one item measuring nationalism in this sample that was equivalent to an item used in the American sample This item read: ‘‘To maintain Israel's superiority, war is sometimes necessary.’** In-group identification was defined by use of two questions: (1) “‘To what extent do you identify yourself as a Jew?’’ (in the case or Jews) or

“*., Arab?'” (in the case of Arabs) and (2) ‘‘To what extent do you feel close to other Jews?’’ (for Jews) or ‘‘ Arabs?’’ (for Arabs) This in- group identification scale was found to have high reliability (@ = 87) In-group preference was defined in a similar fashion as with the Ameri- can sample For Jews it was defined as affect toward Jews minus affect toward Arabs, and for Arabs it was defined as affect toward Arabs minus affect toward Jews

Social dominance orientation was measured by use of the same 16- item SDO, scale used in the U.S sample (a = 85)

Method: Sample 3, U.S National Probability Sample

PARTICIPANTS

The third data set consisted of a national probability sample of Americans and was collected as part of the 1992 National Election Study (NES) con- ducted by the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Re- search at the University of Michigan Altogether, the 1992 study inter- viewed 2,485 randomly selected respondents from across the United States Of the total sample, there were complete data on all of the particu- lar variables we used for the three ethnic groups, as follows: whites (NV

= 1,724), Latinos (V = 166), and blacks (V = 278)

VARIABLES IN THE NATIONAL PROBABILITY SAMPLE

Unfortunately, the NES only contained two items measuring patriotism and none measuring nationalism However, this measure of patriotism still offered us some opportunity to examine the generalizability of findings from the Israeli and American student samples

Patriotism was indexed by the following two questions: (1) ‘‘When

7 We should also note that this two-item patriotism scale was almost identical ta the two- item patriotism scale used recently by de la Garza et al (1996)

8 Note that the Israeli/American comparisons used the same items to define patriotism and nationalism in both samples.

you see the American flag flying does it make you feel extremely good, very good, somewhat good, or not very good?’’ (2) ‘‘How strong is your love for your country, extremely strong, very strong, somewhat strong or not very strong?’ (œ = 78)

In-group affect was defined by use of the NES thermometer rating (cold/warm) of one’s own ethnic in-group For example, among Euro- Americans, in-group affect was defined as the degree of positive affect toward ‘‘whites.’”

In-group preference was defined in essentially the same way as with the two student samples For whites, in-group preference was defined as the difference between the positive affect felt toward whites minus the average affect felt toward blacks and Latinos For Latinos, it was the posi- tive affect felt toward Latinos minus the affect felt toward whites For blacks, it was the positive affect felt toward blacks minus the affect felt toward whites

Results: Israeli and American Comparisons

We begin the substantive analyses with a comparison of the mean differ- ences in patriotism and nationalism between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs and between Euro-Americans and African Americans We decided to use African Americans as the American subordinate group because of its long and intense history of oppression and current status within American soci- ety Using analyses of covariance, we examined mean differences in patri- otism and nationalism, controlling for educational level and social class (see table 3).?

It is not surprising that, even after controlling for factors such as social class and education, Israeli Arabs were significantly and substantially less patriotic and nationalistic than Israeli Jews (patriotism: effect size = 64; nationalism: effect size = 28)." Also, as anticipated, and inconsistent with what the melting pot and pluralist perspectives would expect, there were significant and somewhat substantial differences in the patriotism and nationalism scores of Euro-Americans and African Americans How- ever, these differences were not as powerful among the Americans as among the Israelis (patriotism: effect size = 38; nationalism: effect size

= 14) It is also worth noting that the pattern of the differences between the high- and low-status groups was the same across both countries, in

9, Educational level was indexed by the students’ educational rank (.e., freshman, sopho- more, junior, or senior), and social class was indexed by a composite of two items: (1) the students’ classification of their families into one of five class categories (i.e., poor, working class, middle class, upper middle class, or upper class} and (2) the students” esti- mates of their families” annual income The reliability of the social class index was ade- quate (a = 58)

10 “Effect size” was indexed by the n-coefficient.

Ethnic and Nationaí Actachment 115

Table 3 Means on Patriotism and Nationalism for Israelis and Americans

on the one hand, and nationalism and patriotism, on the other hand, controlling for the effects of educational level and social class

We start this comparison by examining data for the Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs (see table 4) Among the Israeli Jews, patriotism increased

as a function of (1) in-group identification (b = 40, p < 01), (2) prefer- ence for Jews over Arabs (b = 12, p < 01), and, quite surprising, (3) decreasing levels of social dominance orientation (6 = —.17, p < 01) This counterintuitive finding indicates that the more dominance-oriented