Identity Conformity in Taiwan and South Korea: Why Citizens in Divided Societies Are Pressured to Overstate National Pride

To what extent do social and political pressures in divided societies compel individuals to exaggerate allegiance to a dominant national identity? This study examines how conformity pressures shape expressions of national pride in Taiwan and South Korea, two structurally similar democracies whose national identity norms diverged during democratization. Using list experiments to mitigate social desirability bias, we compare direct and indirect measures of national pride across subgroups defined by identity strength, identity content, and background. We find evidence of pride inflation in both societies, with larger and more pervasive effects in South Korea. In Taiwan, individuals who weakly identify as Taiwanese or hold dual Taiwanese and Chinese identities modestly overstate Taiwanese pride, while those of native-origin majority background also inflate pride and Mainland-origin minorities do not. We find no evidence that Chinese identity is suppressed. In South Korea, weak identifiers substantially overstate national pride, and migrants from North Korea markedly exaggerate pride in being South Korean while concealing pride in their origin. We argue that these patterns reflect more pluralistic identity norms in Taiwan and more stringent, state-reinforced norms in South Korea.