Divided loyalties: Perceptions of disloyalty underpin bias toward dually-identified minority-group members.

The paper, in plain language

The suspicion behind the bias

Dual identity — being fully Arab and fully American, say — is what integration ideals prescribe. Yet majority members often react worse to dual identifiers than to those who claim the majority identity alone. With Lotte Thomsen and John Dovidio, I tested the coalitional explanation across five studies: that what majority members are really reacting to is suspected disloyalty. An Arab immigrant presenting a dual identity had his loyalty questioned more than one identifying as 'American only' — especially under intergroup threat — and that suspicion carried the negative feelings toward him.

From the US military to Polish workplaces to German football

The pattern replicated across contexts: judgments about whether an immigrant should be allowed to enlist in the US military, a partial replication in Poland with Russian immigrants, and a study with German football fans, where the effect depended on whether the other group was an ally or a rival. The decisive study manipulated identity and loyalty independently: when a dually identified immigrant's loyalty to the majority was made explicit, he was no longer judged less qualified even for security-sensitive roles. The bias tracks loyalty, not the identity itself.

Why it matters

Societies tell minorities to integrate, then penalise the dual identity that successful integration produces — unless loyalty is demonstrated, a demand rarely made of majority members. Locating the mechanism in coalitional psychology explains when the bias appears, and points to what dissolves it. It also connects to my related finding that assimilation changes how immigrants are literally seen — two faces of the same demand for unambiguous belonging.