Increased perceived safety in day-to-day life relates to critical national identification

Abstract

National identification consistently predicts attitudes within and between groups. Research indicating that threat perceptions often lead to compliance with ingroup authorities suggests that heightened threat perceptions may contribute to stronger submissive national identification. However, the impact of feeling safe on a more critical (in contrast to submissive) sense of national identification remains largely unexplored. Drawing on social safety theory and attachment theory, the present investigation examined whether individual differences in feeling of safety relate to increased critical and submissive/blind forms of national identification. Studies 1A–1B and 2A–2B utilized nationally representative data from large cross-national surveys, finding that greater perceived safety related to increased pride in, emotional attachment to, and closeness to one’s nation. In Studies 3–5, we found that feeling safe in daily life and believing that one is capable of protecting oneself relate to more ingroup attachment and glorification. Notably, the association for feeling of safety and ingroup attachment was larger than that for ingroup glorification. This investigation offers consistent evidence for a positive association between how safe people feel and national identification, highlighting that more research is needed to better understand how feeling of safety could influence intergroup processes.