How “American” is Barack Obama? The Role of National Identity in a Historic Bid for the White House

Against the backdrop of the 2008 presidential election, we examined the extent to which the A merican identity was implicitly and explicitly associated with B arack O bama compared to T ony B lair (Study 1), H illary C linton (Study 2), and J ohn M c C ain (Studies 3 and 4). When conscious control was relatively limited and targets were categorized based on race, the A merican identity was less strongly associated with O bama than with the other candidates. This effect was stronger than when the candidates were categorized based on their personal identity (Studies 1–4), gender (Study 2), political affiliation (Study 3), or age (Study 4). In addition, the extent to which candidates were differentiated in terms of implicit and explicit associations with the A merican identity predicted the relative willingness to actively support them.