National Identity, Social Preferences, and Foreign Policy Attitudes: Experimental Evidence from Japan

Are strong national identities in the public an impediment to cooperative foreign policy attitudes? Researchers have proposed the promotion of universalism—and, accordingly, the submergence of existing national identities—as a viable path toward cooperative international relations. Conversely, I suggest that strong national identities can actually encourage public support for cooperative foreign policy. Evidence from field experiments in Japan that integrates psychological affirmation theory and a game measuring social preferences indicates that Japanese who were affirmed of the positive aspects of their national identity held more prosocial attitudes toward their Chinese counterpart in the game, which in turn led to cooperative foreign policy preferences. In contrast, participants who were not affirmed of their national identity exhibited more proself tendencies in the game, which predicted support for militaristic foreign policy. Finally, in contrast to national identity affirmation, national chauvinism, or perceived superiority over other countries, was associated with militant internationalist attitudes.