Citation

Rosenberg S, Beattie P. Nations Nationalism 2019; 25(1): 361-384.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/nana.12416

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

How citizens view the nation and identify with it is an important element of the phenomenon of nationalism. While shaped by culture, this identification is also subjectively constructed by individuals. Most research on the psychology of national identity is oriented by the assumption that all people think in basically the same way, in terms of simple categories. We complement this approach by examining differences in the quality of people's thinking. While many people think in the simple concrete categorical terms assumed in most research, we argue that some individuals either do not think categorically or they think about categories in a reflective, abstract way. Consequently, these other people construct their national identity differently. To test this, we conducted an online survey that included interactive problem-solving tasks to assess cognitive functioning and standard survey items to measure the quality and affect of participants' American identity. Our results indicate significant differences in the qualities of individuals' thinking that are reflected in differences in their national identification.

Language: en

Keywords

Civic Nationalism; Ethnic Nationalism; Nationhood/National Identity; Political attitudes; Political cognition