I ain’t no fortunate one: On the motivated denial of class privilege.

Abstract

Invisibility makes privilege powerful. Especially when it remains unexposed, privilege perpetuates inequity by giving unearned advantages to certain groups over others. However, recent social movements (e.g., Occupy) attempt to expose class-based privilege, threatening its invisibility. Across 8 experiments, we show that beneficiaries of class privilege respond to such exposure by increasing their claims of personal hardships and hard work, to cover privilege in a veneer of meritocracy. Experiments 1a–c show that when people are provided evidence of their own class privilege, they claim to have suffered more personal life hardships. Experiment 2 suggests that these claims are driven in part by threats to self-regard. Experiment 3 finds that such self-defense is motivated specifically by a desire to attribute positive outcomes to the self (i.e., sense of personal merit). When given the chance to first bolster their sense of personal merit, those benefitting from privilege no longer claim hardships in response to evidence of privilege. Experiments 4 and 5 further suggest self-concerns are at play: only self-relevant privilege evokes defensive responses, and self-affirmation reduces hardship claims more than does system-affirmation. Finally, Experiment 6 suggests that people claim hardships because they believe these imply personal merit on their part. Preventing the privileged from claiming hardship leads them to claim increased effort in the workplace and to increase effort on a difficult task. Overall, results suggest that even when those benefitting from class privileges are confronted with evidence of their “invisible knapsack,” ideologies of personal merit help them cover the privileges of class once again.

Invisibility of Social Privilege to Those Who Have It

“…We resonate with this motivated account (10,11), but suggest that denial of privilege may also arise from cognitive deficits existing outside of motivational defense. The advantages that members of the socially dominant groups enjoy are invisible to them.…”

“…Recent approaches to studying privilege blindness focus on defensive, motivated denial. When confronted with evidence of privilege, members of socially advantaged groups claim personal hardships and victimhood, emphasize hard work and individual effort, downplay advantages conferred to them by society, and see acts of discrimination as isolated rather than systemic (7)(8)(9)(10). As the argument goes, people are aware of the advantages their social group enjoys but engage in intentional "cloaking" of it (11).…”

Herd Invisibility: The Psychology of Racial Privilege

“…Note 1. Our central claims regard the effects of an environment of privilege on human psychology, not any inherent differences among groups; thus, many of the claims we make here should and indeed do apply to other privileged social groups (Branscombe, 1998;Major, 1994;Phillips & Lowery, 2018;Rosette & Tost, 2013;Swencionis & Fiske, 2016).…”

Social class transitions: Three guiding questions for moving the study of class to a dynamic perspective

“…Third, the experience of social class change is a human experience about which scholars simply know little. Some researchers have examined people's beliefs about social class change (Davidai, 2018;Kraus & Tan, 2015); others have explored how dominant group members behave in ways that make change more or less likely (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2005;Phillips & Lowery, 2020;Rivera, 2016); and still others have studied how subordinate group members come to accept the unchanging systems they are in (Laurin, Engstrom, & Alic, 2019). However, one avenue that has yet to be fully explored is how people experience change and its implications for well-being, health, and adaptation.…”