What's in a Name? The Influence of President Obama's Middle Name on Middle Eastern and U.S. Perceptions

In a series of cross-cultural experiments, we explore whether mentioning President Obama's middle name facilitates or impedes his delicate position as a peace broker. Our first study shows that including Obama's middle name with his Cairo address leads Israeli Jews to perceive him as biased toward the Palestinians. Our second and third studies extend these findings in two ways. First, we show that these groups also are influenced when we manipulate the inclusion of Obama's middle name using a television clip, as opposed to a printed news article.Second, we analyze whether the use of Obama's middle name inspires the same reactions in the United States by replicating the study in the United States. Results show that the effect of Obama's middle name differs in the United States. This study has important implications, not only for the President Obama's standing in the Arab world and for the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, but also for our understanding of subtle ethnic cues and biases across cultural contexts