Identité sociale complexe et tolérance à l’égard des membres de l’exogroupe au Cameroun

Abstract

The present research is entitled: "Complex social identity and tolerance towards outgroup members in Cameroun". The theoretical basis of this study is the theory of Roccas and Brewer (2002). It is based on the observation that many different Western contexts have validated the authors' theory. Indeed, psychosocial research has shown that SIT has been revealed weak in predicting intergroup positivity (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), due to the identity singularity on which it is primarily based (Benet-Martínez & Harritatos, 2005). It was on this methodological springboard that the researchers drew up the TSIC, whose preliminary program was designed in 2002. To this extent, they stipulate that a complex social identity that primarily reflects heterogeneity as perceived by an individual, in his or her way of representing the interrelationships between his or her multiple membership groups, could encourage him or her to demonstrate tolerant attitudes towards members of other social categories. Notwithstanding the content of the empirical work carried out as part of the TSIC, it appears that contextual variability, in particular Cameroonian social realities and population sociodemographics characteristics that are the complete opposite of the West, could have an impact on the results once obtained in the literature. Hence the following research question is: in the Cameroonian context, does the attitude of tolerance vary according to the degree of complex social identity? Drawing primarily on the TSIC methodological program (Roccas & Brewer, 2002; Roccas & Pierce, 2005), the concept of tolerance was operationalized in three modalities: positive action, the ingroup-exogroup distancing thermometer and multiculturalism. The logic of this approach gave rise to three specific research hypotheses. Data were drawn from 312 inhabitants of the city of Yaounde. Their selection procedure combines the characteristics of both probability and non-probability sampling techniques. The outcome of the statistical analysis reveals that, in the Cameroonian context, the link between SIC and attitudes towards the ingroup-exogroup distancing thermometer (R = .12, p = 0.03) and multiculturalism (R = .38, p = 000) is significantly more important than the link between SIC and affirmative action (R = .097, p = .08). In other words, two out of three hypotheses were confirmed. Furthermore, in line with Sharp et al. (2019) and Verkuyten and Yildiz (2007), additional analyses were carried out to support the apprehension of SIC functionality. These results are discussed in the light of TSIC's work and the challenges of social tolera nce in a multicultural context.