Hierarchy, American identity, and support for anti-poverty efforts

National identity can encourage social cohesion and a shared sense of identity leading citizens to want to help, support, and trust one another. However, it can also lead to marginalization and even oppression. This chapter examines the consequences of national identity for Americans' views toward income inequality and poverty. It proposes a broad theoretical framework for predicting when national identity will lead individuals to support or oppose redistributive policies. This framework is tested using a nationally representative survey and a laboratory experiment. The results suggest that American identity can be associated with lower levels of concern about income inequality and opposition to poverty alleviating policies. However, this relationship is moderated by implicit associations. The more individuals make an implicit association between wealth and being 'American', the more national identity leads to conservative attitudes regarding income inequality and poverty. These findings suggest national identity can be oppressive when individuals perceive a certain characteristic, in this case wealth, as a fundamental aspect of being a 'true' American.