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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

ethnic identity, ethnic salience, Uganda, human nature

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Political Science

Abstract

Every person has some idea of who they are, but that idea is made up of several identities. A person can be a mother, a sister, an American, a Catholic, an Hispanic, and a friend all at the same time. How we order these identities in dominance was the original purpose of this study. The intent was to see how we can change that ordering to include a larger in-group. For example, what could we do to make people see themselves as Muslims, instead of Shia or Sunni. If we can expand this type of identity, we could change how people view others. When people see others as part of their identity or in-group, they treat each other differently. But instead of religion, we used the ethnic identities in Uganda to study these in group and out-group dynamics. Historically, ethnicity in this part of the world has caused some conflict, including in Uganda and infamously in neighboring Rwanda. What we found was not what we expected, but did give us insight into human nature.

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