A COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN-AMERICAN ETHNIC-IDENTITY

Differences between African Americans and European Americans were exam ined to find how ethnic identity salience was enacted in interethnic c onversations. A sample of 126 African Americans and 78 European Americ ans was recruited from the community using a snowball sampling method. First, different factor structures for the two groups indicated that African Americans conceptualize sociocultural and political identity a s separate constructs while European Americans express a singular and social definition of ethnic identity and experience less identity sali ence than African Americans. Secondly, although our sample is small, t hose who used the label ''African American'' expressed greater politic al ethnic identity salience than those who used the label ''Black''. T his finding is consistent with others' research indicating a continuin g trend toward a positive political posture for African Americans. Thi rd, ethnic identity was found to be negatively related to interethnic communication satisfaction for European Americans. Stronger European A merican ethnic identity was related to less satisfying interethnic con versational outcomes in less intimate relationships. Ethnic identity s alience showed no significant relationship to interethnic conversation al outcomes for European Americans communicating with friends nor for African Americans no matter the relational distance.