Preferences over Outcomes or Process? Moderating Backlash to Indigenous-Language Landmark Names in the United States

Efforts to portray minority groups positively often prompts a backlash in the majority group. In this project, I seek to answer: (1) Are majority group members averse to these positive depictions or the processes that create them? (2) What are the psychological mechanisms that, for some majority group members, provoke a backlash against action that promotes positive depictions of the minority group? (3) Are there ways to discuss these changes that don’t lead to a backlash? I seek to answer these questions by considering Indigenous-language landmark names as a positive depiction of Indigenous Americans in the United States. In survey experiments, I test how information about these landmarks influences non-Native support for pro-Native American policies such as tribal sovereignty and the federal government upholding its treaties with tribal nations. In an online survey experiment, I found that informing individuals about the presence of Indigenous-language landmark names in the United States uniformly increased support for pro-Native American policies. When the message described Indigenous-language landmark names as an activist renaming process, the message provoked a backlash among men, while still increasing support among women. This second pilot will answer questions (2) and (3) through an online survey experiment. In this survey, I specifically aim to test loss aversion and distaste for activism as mechanisms that provoke a backlash against landmark renaming, and historical contextualization of landmark name changes as a potential avenue to engender support.