Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/56540
Research Negational Identity and Politics "Negational identity" may play a large role in political cam- paigning, according to a new study. That is, political candi- dates may influence voters more by focusing on who they aren't than by explaining who they are. The study of the power of nega- tional identity was conducted by Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management in Canada; Adam Gal- insky of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois; and Miguel Unzueta of the UCLA Anderson School of Management. To test their theories, the researchers conducted two experiments, one at Northwest- ern and one at UCLA. In the Northwestern experiment, researchers randomly selected 19 Asian undergraduates and asked them to write ten-minute essays about how being Asian had affected their lives in the United States. Another 19 Asian undergraduates were asked to write essays about how being "not Caucasian" had affected their lives. After complet- ing their essays, they were asked to respond to a seemingly unrelated question about whom they pre- ferred in the U.S. Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Of students asked to write in the affirmative about being Asian, 68 percent preferred Clinton. Of those asked to write in the negative about not being Cauca- sian, 63 percent preferred Obama. At UCLA, researchers conducted a similar experiment with Latino undergraduates. In that case, of those asked to write about being Latino, 58 percent preferred Clin- ton; of those asked to write about not being Caucasian, 58 percent preferred Obama. "Highlighting one's negational identity as nonwhite increased Latino and Asian support for a black presidential candidate, even without any coordination of interests," the authors write. That's not to say that minor- ity candidates should purposely emphasize the fact that they aren't white—such an obvious strat- egy would likely backfire, say the authors. They point to a comment Obama made during his campaign last summer that noted that his face did not look like the faces of other presidents printed on U.S. currency. The uproar over that remark sug- gests that it would be unwise for candidates to introduce race into a campaign, says Unzueta. Candidates might best use nega- tional identity to their advantage when they refer to the opposing party, say the researchers. The Obama campaign, for example, used it liberally by contrasting Obama's views with the largely unpopu- 52 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009 lar views of the sitting president, George W. Bush. "Negational Racial Identity and Presidential Voting Preferences" is forthcoming in the Journal of Exper- imental Social Psychology. Bilingual Ads for Bilingual Markets If corporations want to reach bilingual markets, they may need to produce ads that use both the local and adopted languages, say Rohini Ahluwalia of the Uni- versity of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management in Min- neapolis and Aradhna Krishna of the Uni- versity of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The pair conducted Ahluwalia studies in India, where most citizens are flu- ent in English and Hindi. The research- ers found that the people in India associ- ate the Hindu lan- guage with terms such as "close," "friendly," and "familiar," denoting community and belong- ing. They associated English, on the other hand, with terms such as "global," "hip," and "upper class," denoting sophistication. In that market, say Ahluwalia and Krishna Krishna, advertisers will be more successful if they use the native Hindi to market necessary items like laundry detergent, a product that consumers connect to home. However, they should take a mixed- language approach for luxury items like chocolate or cars. Why not use the local language alone? Local cus-