Missing perspective: Marginalized groups in the social psychological study of social disparities

Abstract

Drawing on interdisciplinary, feminist insights, we encourage social psychologists to embrace the active participation of marginalized groups in social disparities research. We explain (1) how the absence of marginalized groups' perspectives in research presents a serious challenge to understanding intergroup dynamics and concomitant disparities, and (2) how their inclusion could assuage some of social psychology's “fatal flaws.”

Feminist Social Vision: Seeing Through the Lens of Marginalized Perceivers

“…Although existing social vision research provides a wealth of knowledge regarding how marginalized group members are perceived, much less is known about how marginalized group members perceive their worlds. Taking a feminist approach of empowering marginalized groups as active members of the research process and as informants of (necessarily bidirectional) intergroup relations (see also Matsick et al, 2022 ; Shelton, 2000 ) will reveal how perceptual processes shape intergroup relations from both sides, and how marginalized group members may differentially experience their perceptual worlds. These understandings can be harnessed to develop evidence-based interventions to improve well-being among marginalized group members that work alongside traditional interventions aimed at understanding and changing dominant group behavior.…”

“…We argue that beyond their roles as targets in experimental paradigms, the perspectives of marginalized group members add significant value to the study of intergroup relations ( Matsick et al, 2021 , 2022 ; Shelton, 2000 ), the bidirectional nature of which is obscured by the near-uniform focus on dominant group perspectives in psychological research ( Roberts et al, 2020 ; Shelton, 2000 ; see also Matsick et al, 2022 ). The absence of these marginalized perspectives in much of the psychological literature, particularly that pertaining to intergroup relations, “presents a serious challenge to understanding intergroup dynamics and concomitant disparities” ( Matsick et al, 2022 , p. 43). Including marginalized perspectives in this literature would enhance the relevance of psychological science to broader audiences as well as the accuracy and generalizability of psychological research ( Cole, 2009 ; C. Fine, 2018 ; M. Fine & Gordon, 1989 ; Hinzman et al, 2022 ; Sprague, 2005 ).…”

“…For example, heterosexual people cannot know what it is like to live every day as a person with a sexual minority identity, what it is like to face the repeated task of “coming out” every time a new audience is encountered, or what it is like to face microaggressions and explicit prejudice when out with a same-sex partner. People with marginalized identities have unique perspectives on how these intergroup relations occur (see Matsick et al, 2022 ; Shelton, 2000 ).…”