Does the Model Minority Myth act as a barrier for intra-minority solidarity? An Investigation of Black Americans’ commonality and political solidarity with Asian Americans
Chu, Uyen P.
2022
-
The Model Minority Myth (MMM) suggests that Asian Americans are economically affluent, high achieving in an academic setting, and high-status (Bell et al., 1997; Kim, 2001). The MMM has historically been weaponized by White Americans to pit minority racial groups against one another, which has led to interracial tension between the Asian Americans and other racial minority groups, especially with ... read moreBlack American communities (Tran & Curtain, 2017). The purpose of this experiment was to investigate whether the MMM hinders solidarity between Black and Asian Americans. Specifically, we hypothesized that being exposed to the MMM reduces Black Americans’ solidarity with Asian Americans. Black participants (N = 226) were randomly assigned to read a Twitter thread that depicted Asian Americans as either prototypical model minorities or as non-prototypical model minorities before completing measures of collective action, feelings of commonality, common values, political solidarity, experiences of discrimination, and endorsement of the MMM. Participants in the prototypical model minority condition expressed less interest in collective action compared to participants in the non-prototypical condition. Exploratory regression analyses revealed that, as feelings of commonality, participant experiences with discrimination, and political solidarity increased, desires to engage in collective action also increased. This study centers Black participants who are underrepresented in psychology research and investigates how the Model Minority Myth may reduce Black participants’ interests to engage in collective action. Furthermore, the results show that collective action is a complicated behavior that depends on many factors.
Thesis (B.S.)--Tufts University, 2022
Submitted to the Dept. of Psychology.
Keywords: Solidarity, Model Minority, Asian American, Black American, common in-group identity.read less - ID:
- rn301g05t
- To Cite:
- TARC Citation Guide EndNote
- Usage:
- Detailed Rights
