Seeing the Other in the Self: The Impact of Barack Obama and Cultural Socialization on Perceptions of Self-Other Overlap among African Americans.

Past research has suggested that the cognitive broadening produced by positive emotions may extend to social contexts. Building on this evidence, two experiments conducted one year post-election examined the extent to which increased social perspective taking occurs after exposure to Obama. Experiment 1 demonstrated that African Americans exposed to Obama showed more inclusive social perceptions of self and others, even beyond that associated with another highly successful African-American exemplar (Oprah Winfrey). Mediation analyses provided support for the causal role of positive emotions in social perspective taking. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1 and demonstrated that exposure to Obama led to reports of greater self-other overlap with people of other races, but only among African Americans high in cultural socialization. Implications of these findings for the role of positive emotions and cultural socialization in broadening perceptions of intergroup closeness are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]