Boundaries to the gateway effect: Perceived dual identity integration shapes the role of biculturals in inter-ethnic relations

ABSTRACT

Introducing a concept of perceived dual identity integration (PDII), we test whether, for biculturals to act as agateway group (GG), their identities should be viewed as blended/harmonized by the majority. We provide correlational evidence that PDII underlies the relation between perception of GG (people of Serb-Bosniak origin) as dually identified and (1) perception of GG as a bridge between Serbs and Bosniaks and (2) feelings toward Bosniaks. Then we experimentally show that exposure to GG with blended/harmonized identity, compared to GG with distanced/conflicted identity, leads to positive feelings toward Bosniaks, via perception of GG as abridge. Thus, if the majority does not perceive integration of adversarial identities as apossibility, biculturals’ potential to serve as gateway is lost.

KEYWORDS:

• Perceived identity integration
• dual identity
• gateway groups
• intergroup relations
• post-conflict setting

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We use the term boundary to refer to the process underlying a causal relationship (Busse et al., 2017), and explore mediating effects of PDII on the relation between dual identity attribution to the GG and evaluation of both GG and the outgroup (Study 1) and effects of PDII manipulation on the same outcomes (Study 2).

2. Somewhat lower alpha coefficients are due to only four items per dimension (Kline, 2000).

3. We also conducted the analysis without control variables; additionally, we re-ran path analysis controlling for gender, due to the large disproportion between men and women in the sample. All additional analyses are available at https://osf.io/tezuv/?view_only=5671e20c5974493596b2e0e21b329e36

4. As in Study 1, we also ran the path analysis without control variables; due to the disproportion between men and women, we also tested the model including gender as an additional control variable. The results are available at https://osf.io/tezuv/?view_only=5671e20c5974493596b2e0e21b329e36

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministarstvo Prosvete, Nauke i Tehnološkog Razvoja [179018].