COLLECTIVE IDENTITY ORIENTATION, PATRIOTISM, AND REACTIONS TO NATIONAL OUTCOMES

Two experiments examined the extent to which individual differences in collective identity orientation moderate perceptions of the United St ates following national success and failure. Participants classified a s low or high on both personal and collective identity orientations re ad fictitious news stories describing actions by the United States in response to emergencies. For each story, the United States was portray ed as responding effectively (successful outcome) or failing to act qu ickly and efficiently (failure outcome). In Experiment 1, among subjec ts low in personal identity orientation, those high in collective iden tity orientation rated the United States more favorably following nati onal failure than subjects low in collective identity. In Experiment 2 , subjects' beliefs about whether their responses would be private or public were also manipulated. The results replicated Experiment 1, but no effects of the publicity of subjects' responses were obtained, sug gesting that the results reflect self-esteem maintenance rather than s elf-presentational motivations.