Replication Data for: Not My Problem: How Social Identity Shapes Problem Perceptions and Policy Attitudes

Social identity plays a central role in mass politics, shaping the perceptions citizens have of politically relevant phenomena. Does identity bias perceptions of social problems, leading citizens to show preferential concern for problems affecting their ingroup? If so, why? Most experimental research has not found evidence of such ingroup bias, but when it has, it has not distinguished empirically between ingroup favoritism or outgroup hostility, leaving open the question of whether identity biases people for their group or against outgroups. Also unclear is whether symbolic or self-interested motivations drive ingroup bias. Employing a variety of social identities and social problems, three survey experiments show citizens perceive problems affecting outgroup members as less serious and more strongly oppose government aid in those cases. Ingroup favoritism was not found because participants did not perceive ingroup victims as more similar than non-identified victims. Outgroup hostility was driven more by concerns stemming from self-interest than symbolic identity-based motivations.

社会身份（Social identity）在大众政治中扮演核心角色，塑造公民对政治相关现象的认知。身份是否会使公民对社会问题的认知产生偏差，导致他们更优先关注影响其**内群体（ingroup）**的问题？若存在这种情况，原因何在？大多数实验研究未发现此类**内群体偏见（ingroup bias）**的证据，但即便有所发现，也未能从经验上区分**内群体偏爱（ingroup favoritism）**与**外群体敌意（outgroup hostility）**，从而留下一个悬而未决的问题：身份是使人们偏向自己的群体，还是敌视外群体？同样不明确的是，内群体偏见的驱动因素是象征性动机还是自利动机？通过采用多种社会身份与社会问题，三项调查实验表明，公民认为影响**外群体（outgroup）**成员的问题不那么严重，且更强烈反对针对这些情况的政府援助。研究未发现内群体偏爱，因为参与者并未认为内群体受害者比未被识别身份的受害者更具相似性。外群体敌意的驱动因素更多来自自利相关的担忧，而非基于象征性身份的动机。