Pick your perspective: Racial group membership and judgments of intent, harm, and discrimination

Abstract

How do people judge the intentions of a perpetrator and the harm experienced by a victim in cases of racial discrimination? How do these judgments influence attributions to discrimination? We examined these questions in 4 studies, predicting that Whites’ and Blacks’ judgments would reflect different group-based perspectives. Supporting our hypotheses, White authors describing an arrest denied intent and ignored harm relative to Black authors (Study 1). When judging whether an event was discrimination, Whites were influenced by intent, but Blacks were influenced by intent and harm (Study 2). Finally, instructing people to take the victim’s perspective increased Whites’ judgments of intent, harm, and discrimination (Studies 3 and 4), while Blacks’ judgments generally remained the same (Study 4). Our results demonstrate one reason why Whites and Blacks judge discrimination differently—they adopt different perspectives when evaluating intent and harm—and offer a way to increase Whites’ recognition of discrimination: perspective-taking.

Legitimating Discrimination Against Students with Disability in School: The Role of Justifications of Discriminatory Behavior

“…The contrast testing H1 showed that participants perceived the teacher's behavior as more discriminatory when he/she used a hostile justification to exclude the students with disability rather than a benevolent one, F Contrast2 (1, 124) = 20.45, p = 0.001, h p 2 = 0.14. These results replicated previous findings concerning the role of justification on discrimination attribution (Bastart et al, in press;Simon et al, 2019;Swim et al, 2003).…”

“…As a consequence, they tend to accept every legitimizing argument aimed at justifying discriminatory behaviors (Kappen & Branscombe, 2001). Indeed, a negative group-based behavior is more likely to be recognized as discrimination if rooted in unambiguous hostile intentions (Simon et al, 2019) than if perceived as acceptable in terms of social justice (Iyer et al, 2014). Research on ambivalent sexism has largely documented this effect of ambivalence: differential group-based treatments based on benevolent stereotypes go undetected more often than similar treatments based on hostile stereotypes (Glick & Fiske, 1996;Glick et al, 2000).…”

“…We determined the sample size based on small to medium effect sizes of the impact of justification on discrimination perception observed in previous research (Bastart et al, Study 3, in press;Simon et al, 2019), a between subject design with 3 conditions and 80% power. The more conservative estimation (small effect size) indicated 146 participants; whereas, the less conservative (medium effect size) indicated 93 participants.…”

Identity Questioning: Antecedents and Consequences of Prejudice Attributions

“…For example, microaggressions (Sue et al., ), positive stereotypes (Czopp, ), jokes (Douglass, Mirpuri, English, & Yip, ), or compliments of stereotype consistent behavior (Glick & Fiske, ) are not always cast as acts of discrimination by disadvantaged group members. Determining whether a behavior is prejudice can depend on perceptions of intent or the motivations ascribed to the perpetrator (e.g., Baron, Burgess, & Kao, ; Hill, ; McClelland & Hunter, ; Simon, Moss, & O'Brien, ; Swim, Scott, Sechrist, Campbell, & Stangor, ). Prior theorizing suggests that attribution theory, largely applied to behavior, can be used to understand perceptions of prejudice because prejudice is an internal state that is believed to drive behavior (Gilbert, ; Malle, ; Swim et al., ).…”

Harm and Discrimination

“…9 Cf. BAn Examination of Factors Affecting Perception of Workplace Discrimination^ (Banerjee 2008), BThat's Not Discrimination: American Beliefs and the Limits of Anti-Discrimination Law^ (Eyer 2011(Eyer , p. 1314, BPick Your Perspective: Racial Group Membership and Judgments of Intent, Harm, and Discrimination^ (Simon et al 2017). conditions and substance abuse are roughly similar between these groups. Still, controlling for relevant factors, minority children and youth receive less such care than their White counterparts.…”