Disrupting Beliefs in Racial Progress: Reminders of Persistent Racism Alter Perceptions of Past, But Not Current, Racial Economic Equality

Onyeador, Ivuoma N.; Daumeyer, Natalie M.; Rucker, Julian M.; Duker, Ajua; Kraus, Michael W.; Richeson, Jennifer A.

doi:10.1177/0146167220942625

Cited by 59 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…These latter findings suggest a clear, yet peculiar, commitment to the misperception of racial economic equality. Narratives of societal racial progress are difficult for even veridical information presented in a single laboratory session to penetrate ( 16 , 17 , 30 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, the magnitude of the Black–White wealth gap and its associated misperceptions suggest that more detailed data on its magnitude might be needed to help respondents fundamentally recalibrate what they believe to be true ( 2 , 4 ). For instance, general reminders, without data, of the persistence of structural racial inequality do not increase the accuracy of estimates of the Black–White wealth gap relative to a control condition without these reminders ( 30 ).…”

Section: Narratives Data and Realistic Perceptions Of The Black–white Wealthmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Testing the efficacy of three informational interventions for reducing misperceptions of the Black–White wealth gap

Callaghan

Harouni

Dupree

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Americans remain unaware of the magnitude of economic inequality in the nation and the degree to which it is patterned by race. We exposed a community sample of respondents to one of three interventions designed to promote a more realistic understanding of the Black–White wealth gap. The interventions conformed to recommendations in messaging about racial inequality drawn from the social sciences yet differed in how they highlighted data-based trends in Black–White wealth inequality, a single personal narrative, or both. Data interventions were more effective than the narrative in both shifting how people talk about racial wealth inequality—eliciting less speech about personal achievement—and, critically, lowering estimates of Black–White wealth equality for at least 18 mo following baseline, which aligned more with federal estimates of the Black–White wealth gap. Findings from this study highlight how data, along with current recommendations in the social sciences, can be leveraged to promote more accurate understandings of the magnitude of racial inequality in society, laying the necessary groundwork for messaging about equity-enhancing policy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Narratives Data and Realistic Perceptions Of The Black–white Wealthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the efficacy of three informational interventions for reducing misperceptions of the Black–White wealth gap

Callaghan

Harouni

Dupree

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

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“…For instance, in U.S. contexts, zero-sum beliefs about race can lead Whites to perceive less bias against Blacks than against Whites (Norton & Sommers, 2011). Group-protective beliefs about the nature of racism (e.g., seeing racism as a structural problem or not) can likewise motivate people to disregard or even distort cues about inequality (Rucker, Duker, & Richeson, 2019;Onyeador et al, 2020; see also Unzueta & Lowery, 2008).…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inequality in People's Minds

Phillips¹,

Tepper²,

Goya‐Tocchetto³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The extent of inequality that people perceive in the world is often a better predictor of individual and societal outcomes than the level of inequality that actually exists. As such, scholars from across the social sciences, including economics, sociology, psychology, and political science, have recently worked to understand individuals’ (mis)perceptions of inequality. Unfortunately, many researchers treat the process underlying such perceptions as a black box, focusing predominantly on lay people’s numeric estimates of inequality, and paying less attention to how people come to form these perceptions or what these perceptions mean to participants. In the current review, we draw on research in perception, cognition, and developmental and social psychology, to introduce a novel comprehensive framework for understanding individuals’ perceptions of inequality. We argue that subjective perceptions of inequality should be viewed as a process that unfolds across five interlinked and iterative stages. To form perceptions of the scope of inequality in society, people need to (1) have access to inequality cues in the world, (2) attend to these cues, (3) comprehend these cues, (4) process these cues (often succumbing to motivational biases), and (5) summarize these cues into a meaningful representation of inequality. Our framework highlights when and why lay people may misperceive the scope of inequality in society and provides a roadmap for research to examine how the processes in people's minds affect the outcomes researchers are ultimately interested in.

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“…Relatedly, recent work finds that White Americans resist accepting information indicating that this counterfactual comparison is false (i.e., that the United States has actually not made much progress toward racial equality from the past to the present; Onyeador et al, 2021).…”

Section: Structural Causal Inference 16mentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking Structurally: A Cognitive Framework for Understanding How People Attribute Inequality to Structural Causes

Amemiya¹,

Mortenson²,

Heyman³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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To accurately explain social group inequalities, people must consider structural explanations, which are causal explanations that appeal to societal factors such as discriminatory institutions and policies. Structural explanations are a distinct type of extrinsic explanation—they identify stable societal forces that are experienced by specific social groups. We argue that a novel framework is needed to specify how people infer structural causes of inequality. The proposed framework is rooted in counterfactual theories of causal judgment, positing that people infer structural causes by discerning whether structural factors were “difference-making” for the inequality they observe. Building on this foundation, our framework makes the following novel contributions: First, we propose specific types of evidence that support this inference, and second, we consider the unique contextual, cognitive, and motivational barriers to the availability and acceptance of this evidence. We conclude by exploring how the framework might be applied in future research examining people’s explanations for inequality.

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Disrupting Beliefs in Racial Progress: Reminders of Persistent Racism Alter Perceptions of Past, But Not Current, Racial Economic Equality

Cited by 59 publications

References 36 publications

Testing the efficacy of three informational interventions for reducing misperceptions of the Black–White wealth gap

Testing the efficacy of three informational interventions for reducing misperceptions of the Black–White wealth gap

Inequality in People's Minds

Thinking Structurally: A Cognitive Framework for Understanding How People Attribute Inequality to Structural Causes

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