“Welcome to the U.S.” but “change your name”? Adopting Anglo names and discrimination

Abstract A field experiment and a lab experiment investigated how White Americans react to foreigners who present themselves either using original names or Anglo names. Drawing on self-categorization theory, hypotheses were derived from a partial ingroup membership framework. In Study 1, an email from a Chinese student requesting a meeting about graduate training was sent to 419 White professors with the name of the sender being varied (Xian versus Alex). Use of the Chinese name led to fewer responses and agreements to meet than using the Anglo name. In Study 2, a lecture recording from an international graduate student was presented to 185 White undergraduates with the name of the lecturer varied (Jian versus John). The preference for Anglo (Chinese) names over Chinese (Anglo) names was apparent among those high (low) in assimilationist and low (high) in multicultural ideologies. These findings point to an important interplay between partial intergroup membership and acculturation ideologies of perceivers in predicting bias. Future research directions from both minority and majority perspectives are discussed.