Majority friendship and minority support for social change: The role of ethnic and politicized identification among indigenous people in Chile

This study revisits an alleged ‘sedative’ effect of intergroup friendship on minority supportfor social change. Focusing on support for political action and empowering policies amongIndigenous minorities in Chile, we examine both friendship with majority Chileans andpersonal discrimination; we distinguish ethnic and politicized minority identifications ashypothetical processes connecting intergroup contact with political outcomes; and wepropose majority friends’ perceived valuation of Indigenous minority friendships as ahypothetical buffer against sedation. Drawing on a large-scale stratified national sample ofIndigenous peoples (N = 1856, aged 17-90), we tested half-longitudinal, (fully) cross-laggedmodels over two years. Qualifying earlier evidence of sedation, negative effects of majorityfriendship on minority support for social change were exclusively found cross-sectionally,and only when majority friends were perceived not to value minority friendships. In contrast,majority friendship had direct positive effects on support for social change over time. Wealso found that friendship promoted politicized identification over time, which in turn wasassociated with more support for social change. Personal discrimination predicted moresupport for social change both directly and indirectly. We conclude that majority friendshipneed not compromise and may instead promote minority group members’ support for changetowards equality.