The impact of bilingualism on intergroup attitudes: The role of the perceived group status

• Autor(a) principal: Antonov, Alexandra
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/23759
• topic: Language; Bilinguismo -- Bilingualism; Implicit attitudes; Explicit attitudes; Intergroup bias; Perceived group status; Linguagem; Atitudes implícitas; Atitudes explícitas; Preconceito intergrupal; Estatuto grupal percebido

The study of intergroup attitudes has a long history in social psychology. Even if there is considerable knowledge on the mechanisms that sustain these attitudes, there has been a substantial change on how they are measured and understood. Recently, it has been suggested that implicit intergroup attitudes are affected by the language in which they are expressed. Recent studies have shown that participants show more intergroup bias on an Implicit Association Test (IAT) when tested in their native language (L1) compared to a second language (L2). However, these studies were conducted with participants of low-status L1 groups. Group status is an important variable in intergroup relations that influences cognitions, emotions, thoughts, feelings, and overall intergroup bias. In the current study, we replicated previous work, examining the role of the testing language in intergroup bias. However, we further investigated this issue by including two groups varying in status. Moreover, we explored whether group perceived status moderated the previously observed effects on intergroup attitudes. A sample of 184 English-Spanish bilinguals completed an IAT in L1 and L2. Results indicated that participants from both groups exhibited implicit intergroup bias. Notably, they showed more bias when taking the IAT in their native language, especially when the entire survey was taken in that language. Regarding explicit attitudes, results showed that Mexican people showed ingroup favoritism, and US Americans displayed outgroup favoritism. Finally, the results indicated that the reduction of implicit intergroup bias observed in L2 was not moderated by perceived group status.