Social context, ethnic identity, and ethnocultural empathy

Thesis (M.A., Psychology)--California State University, Sacramento, 2009.Research on ethnicity suggests that people???s understanding of ethnicity is embedded in a system of levels and the degree to which a setting is ethnically diverse may shape how people understand and identify with their ethnicity and related attitudes and emotions. Drawing on this body of work, this study investigated how ethnocultural empathy may vary by the ethnic composition of social context for White Americans and ethnic minority group members and how it may vary for ethnic minority group members with different ethnic identity levels. One-hundred and thirty-three undergraduate students served as participants and completed a questionnaire packet assessing percent diversity of social settings participants resided in, their ethnic identity, and their ethnocultural empathy. The results showed a strong ethnicity and ethnic identity effect with ethnic minority participants reporting greater ethnocultural empathy than White American participants and those ethnic minorities with a stronger ethnic identity reporting greater ethnocultural empathy.Psycholog