Is Ethnicity Identifiable
Lessons from an Experiment in South Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6284357 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A S Harris (0000-0003-2097-1149, New York University), Michael G Findley (0000-0002-4830-1828, The University of Texas at Austin) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 4-33 |
| Publication date | 2014-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Conflict Resolution (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0027 • E-ISSN: 1552-8766 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022002712459710 |
| OpenAlex | W2114812915 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 24 |
| References cited | 64 |
Ethnicity is frequently posited as an important factor in civil violence and other political contexts. Despite the attention that ethnicity receives, its effects depend on an important, but mostly ignored, assumption that ethnicity is identifiable within and across groups. There is likely considerable variation in peoples’ abilities to identify each other. Certain individuals within groups might be better at identifying others’ ethnicities; further, different types of information might aid identification better. We contend that the strength of an individual’s ethnic identity influences her ability to identify others correctly. We test this argument using an experiment in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in which individuals attempted to identify members of the major black ethnic groups. We find that the average individual struggles to identify ethnicity correctly in many conditions. Individuals with a stronger identity, however, are often better at correctly identifying the ethnicity of others relative to the average individual. When receiving contradictory information, individuals with stronger identities were sometimes deceived more easily than others. These results have implications for a diverse set of studies relying on the identifiability assumption
Argument (complex analysis · Ethnic group · Identifiability · Identification (biology · Identity (music · Political science · Variation (astronomy · Computer Science · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Law · Medicine · Political Conflict and Governance · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology
Reducing or Reinforcing In-Group Preferences? An Experiment on Information and Ethnic Voting
Social Networks and the Political Salience of Ethnicity
At the Borders of Identity
Ethnic diversity in central government cabinets
Race and Responsiveness
Microfoundations in international relations
Ethnicity is not public service destiny
Group identification, uncertainty, and the duration of genocide and politicide
Politically Speaking
Identifiability, state repression, and the onset of ethnic conflict
War, social preferences, and anti-outgroup behavior
Carrying the culture
Coethnic Bias and Wartime Informing
Strategically Ambiguous Identities
The Effect of Language on Political Appeal
Do Voters Prefer Just Any Descriptive Representative? The Case of Multiracial Candidates
Identity, repression, and the threat of ethnic conflict in a strong state
Excluded Ethnic Groups, Conflict Contagion, and the Onset of Genocide and Politicide during Civil War
How electoral competition shapes local public goods provision in South Africa
Can Encounters With the State Improve Minority-State Relations? Evidence From Myanmar
The Politics of Ethnic Identity in Sub-Saharan Africa
Political Psychology in International Relations
Ethnic Visibility
Measuring Descriptive Representation at Scale
The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
The Psychology of Attitudes
Fractionalization
Theories of intergroup relations
Why Ethnic Parties Succeed
The Geography of Ethnic Violence
An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict
The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior
The Foundations of Ethnic Politics
The Deadly Ethnic Riot
Social Dominance
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
The Logic of Violence in Civil War
Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa
The Group as the Container of Generalized Reciprocity
What's in a Line? Is Partition a Solution to Civil War
Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars
Negative affect and social judgment
The “Black Sheep Effect”
The ingroup overexclusion effect
The security dilemma and ethnic conflict
Ethnic identification
Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa
The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure
The Colors of Violence
Ethnic groups in conflict
Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society
Determining the Causes of Irredentism
The Ontology of “Political Violence
Geography as Motivation and Opportunity
Knowing Your Enemy
From Armed Conflict to War
Measuring the Effect of “Ethnicity
Democratization, Political Institutions, and Ethnic Conflict
Regime Change and Ethnic Cleavages in Africa
What Is Ethnic Identity and Does It Matter
Measuring Ethnic Fractionalization in Africa
Are Patriots Bigots? An Inquiry into the Vices of In‐Group Pride
Overcoming apartheid
Causal uncertainty beliefs and diagnostic information seeking
Prejudice and criteria for identification of ethnic photographs
Judgment under emotional certainty and uncertainty
Ethnic Unmixing and Civil War
Intraethnic Dominance and Control
Marginality
Human Groups and Social Categories
Some Roots of Prejudice
How Ethnic and Linguistic Heterogeneity Influence the Prospects for Civil Society
Ethnic Defection in Civil War
Racism and racial categorization
Ethnic stereotypes
The Colors of Violence
Prejudice and identification of minority group membership
Beyond Fractionalization
Explaining Interethnic Cooperation
Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War
The Identifiability of Jews
Ethnicity as cognition
| Unique citing works | 24 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,18 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2025 (11) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 24 |