National Role Evocation as a Function of Cross-National Interaction

Abstract

The hypothesis that a cross-national interaction increases ethnic role salience was investigated in a laboratory setting. Subjects and confederates engaged in free social interaction, and sub-sequently Ss were required to describe the other person, how they thought the other person perceived them, and how they saw themselves. The experiment was run under three conditions: a) Australian Ss interacting with an Australian confederate (C); b) Australian Ss interacting with an Asian C; and c) Asian Ss interacting with an Australian C. The frequency of ethnic or racial references in the three response categories constituted the dependent variable. More ethnic responses occurred in the two cross-national conditions than in the nationally homogeneous group; and in the cross-national conditions, Asian Ss gave more ethnic responses than Australian Ss, this effect being mainly accounted for by differences in perceived ethnic role attribution. The implications of heightened national role awareness on race relations were briefly discussed.