Reminders of ingroup privilege often threaten identity but rarely change beliefs

Abstract

Despite progress over the past century, social inequality remains pervasive in the United States. One approach for addressing inequality is persuading members of high-status groups that their status is partly a product of privilege––that is, unearned advantages that are shared by most members of their group. However, telling people that the accomplishments of their group are not fully earned often elicits defensiveness. Acknowledging ingroup privileges can threaten ingroup identity, raising concerns that attempts to raise awareness of group-based advantages can backfire, making people less supportive of equality efforts. Two studies (N = 773) test the effects of exercises intended to raise privilege awareness. In Study 1, men completed checklists describing privileges men have relative to women. In Study 2, White people completed checklists describing White privileges and received feedback informing them of their privilege. People who acknowledge inequity felt guilt and gratitude after text-based privilege exercises, while people who deny inequity felt threatened by them. However, we find weak and inconsistent evidence that privilege awareness polarizes attitudes about race, gender, and social policy. While privilege awareness activities often appear to evoke defensiveness, they do not consistently polarize attitudes or backfire against their intended goals.

Religious identity and intersectional privilege: (A)symmetric biases in Christians and atheists are unaffected by prompts to consider religious and racial privilege.

“…Our findings speak to the complicated challenge of addressing White privilege, as some research suggests that acknowledgements of privilege can threaten identity among high-status groups and produce defensive reactions (Puryear et al, 2020) and can create downstream effects such as decreased sympathy for White people struggling with poverty (Cooley, Brown-Iannuzzi, Lei, & Ciopolli, 2019). Other research finds that reminders of White privilege can increase White Americans’ perceptions of anti-Black racism (Cooley, Brown-Iannuzzi, & Cottrell, 2019) and increase opposition to displays of Confederate symbols (Rios et al, 2021).…”

“…There are several possible reasons why the results of our privilege manipulations differed from others. One reason may be that we asked our participants to consciously consider and self-report advantages and disadvantages of their respective social groups, while other research uses manipulations such as privilege checklists (Puryear et al, 2020) or primes social identity (Johnson et al, 2012). There is also evidence to suggest that more cognitive appraisals of White privilege-as opposed to identity threats-can reduce racial prejudice among White Americans (Stewart et al, 2012).…”

Addressing the “Why” in White privilege: The limits of mere evidence confrontations and the potential of contextualizing White privilege in national colonial history

“…Empty control conditions have been shown to lead to an overestimation of effects, simply because completing an exercise can increase engagement in a study (Lane et al, 2021). This is especially concerning as at least one previous study comparing a mere evidence confrontation with an active control condition has produced small or null-effects (Puryear et al, 2019). To address these limitations of previous work, we used an active control condition to our study design.…”

“…On a second page, participants received information about White privilege today including a short statement on its post-colonial context. To illustrate White privilege, we used a graphical depiction of White privilege adapted from Puryear et al (2019). In the mere evidence condition, participants only received the information on White privilege without any mention of colonialism.…”

“…Past research documents that confrontations with White privilege often trigger defensive responses (Knowles et al, 2014;Lowery et al, 2012;Murdoch & McAloney-Kocaman, 2019;Phillips & Lowery, 2015;Unzueta & Lowery, 2008), such as denying inequality or justifying privilege through merit (Knowles et al, 2014). Whereas some interventions found positive effects, such as increased acceptance that one personally profits from privilege and motivation to address the inequality (Case et al, 2014;Ehrke et al, 2020;Leach et al, 2006), others found that White privilege confrontations rather tend to exacerbate previously held attitudes toward racial inequality instead of changing them (Brad et al, 2019;Puryear et al, 2019;Strupp-Levitsky, 2020). What can explain these different outcomes?…”