Is Affirmation the Cure? Self-Affirmation and European-Americans’ Perception of Systemic Racism

Abstract

Racial-ethnic gaps in perception of racism are persistent in the United States, perhaps because the acknowledgement of racism is threatening to European Americans. Supporting this argument, preliminary research indicates that self-affirmation boosts European Americans' perception of racism and reduces the gap between European and Hispanic Americans' perception of racism. Although promising, these studies were limited by relatively low statistical power and no subsequent studies have assessed their robustness. We conducted 3 pre-registered experiments testing the effect of self-affirmation on perception of racism. Surprisingly, self-affirmation failed to increase European Americans' perception of racism (Study 1-3). Further, self-affirmation failed to reduce the gap between European and African Americans' perception of racism (Study 3). Our results challenge the notion that selfaffirmation reliably alters perception of racism. Discussion highlights methodological, cultural, and historical differences between studies that may explain discrepancies in results.

Moving Beyond Implicit Bias Training: Policy Insights for Increasing Organizational Diversity

“…In line with this, self-affirmation exercises are useful to combat threatening information—Whites’ ability to perceive racism is heightened after they have affirmed their values (Adams et al, 2006; Badea & Sherman, 2019; Cohen & Sherman, 2014; cf. Lesick & Zell, 2020). In addition, even when people respond defensively (e.g., to demographic change; Craig & Richeson, 2014) in the short term, they often grow to appreciate greater diversity in the long term (Ramos et al, 2019), becoming less likely to stereotype different ethnic groups over time (Bai et al, 2020).…”

Ignorance of History and Political Differences in Perception of Racism in the United States

“…Next, participants completed two measures of perceived racism by responding on a scale from 1 ( not at all ) to 7 ( certainly ) to indicate how certain they were that each of a series of items reflected racism (Lesick & Zell, 2021; Nelson et al, 2013). The first included nine items assessing perception of systemic racism (e.g., The portrayal of African Americans in U.S. entertainment media ; α = .93), while the second included five items assessing perception of individual racism (e.g., Several people walk into a restaurant at the same time.…”

“…Along these lines, White Americans are more likely to deny racism when they strongly identify with their racial group (Blodorn et al, 2016; Strickhouser et al, 2019) and less likely to deny it following values-affirmation techniques that lower defensiveness (Adams et al, 2006; Unzueta & Lowery, 2008; cf. Lesick & Zell, 2021). Furthermore, White Americans are more likely to deny systemic than individual racism (O’Brien et al, 2009; Unzueta & Lowery, 2008), because the acknowledgment of systemic racism induces greater self-image threat.…”

Defining and finding an endgame in education on race

“…A Freirian form of communication that attempts to create a symbiosis between administrators, faculty, staff, and students, academic love languages likewise seek to positively convey institutional temperament and sentiment. In the case of racial injustices, the induction of academic love languages is meant to convey institutions’ understanding of the unease being felt by its constituents (Adams et al, 2006; Lesick and Zell, 2021; Unzueta and Lowery, 2008). Indeed, the mere acknowledgment by powerbrokers that racial injustice has occurred is at least moderately is affirming , telegraphing awareness and concern.…”