Abstract
<p>Why do some people perceive two social identities as fitting together while others see them as largely distinct? We propose that these perceptions are shaped, in part, by the social environments in which people live. We tested this model using Christian Democrats, whose religious and political identities often violate prevailing partisan stereotypes. Two observational studies (Ns = 505 and 484) showed that local political (Democratic voting margins) and religious (Christian prevalence) contexts predicted perceived support for Christian and Democratic identities. Specifically, living in more Democratic counties was associated with greater perceived support for Democrats and lower perceived support for Christians, whereas living in more Christian counties was generally associated with greater perceived support for Christians and lower perceived support for Democrats. In turn, greater perceived support for either identity was associated with perceiving Christian and Democratic identities as more overlapping. Consistent with this model, a preregistered experiment (N = 769) demonstrated that increasing perceived support for Christians increased perceived overlap between Christian and Democratic identities. Across studies, greater perceived overlap was selectively associated with warmer evaluations of Christian and Republican targets, suggesting that when people perceive their identities as not fitting together, they may reaffirm one identity (e.g., Democrat) by distancing themselves from the competing identity (e.g., Christian) and salient outgroup members (e.g., Republicans). Together, these findings suggest that perceptions of identity overlap are shaped by social environments and identify perceived social support as one mechanism through which social environments influence these perceptions.</p>