GROUP IDENTIFICATION IN POLITICAL CONTEXT

Group identification has been an important concept utilized by scholar s for understanding the formation of political preferences by the mass citizenry. This research tests two competing hypotheses that attempt to explain longitudinal variation in the effect of group identificatio ns on the preferences of the citizenry: Whether such change occurs (1) as a result of shifts in the proportion of the electorate that identi fies with a group or (2) as a result of the varying impact of group id entifications on political preference. The evidence indicates that the impact of group identifications on citizens' candidate preferences ch anges in response to the political salience of the group, as others ha ve predicted, accounting for variations in group voting patterns.