Self-Affirmation and Prejudice Reduction: When and Why?

Abstract

The question of the antecedents of prejudicial responses has a long history that includes contributions of historical, structural, cultural, and psychological factors. Social-psychological research on prejudice as self-image maintenance provides evidence that manifestations of prejudice stem, in part, from the motivation to maintain a feeling of self-worth and self-integrity. Here, we review studies that indicate when and why prejudice toward out-groups in response to self-threats is weakened by affirmations of self-worth. A distinction emerges between in-group threats (e.g., negative acts committed by the in-group) and out-group threats (e.g., immigrants) to social identity, on the one hand, and the defensive reactions people make in response to each kind of threat (i.e., denying in-group responsibility vs. displaying prejudice), on the other. Such negative intergroup interactions can be attenuated by affirming the self. We present theorized moderators (i.e., individual differences and cultural norms) and proposed mechanisms underlying affirmation effects in the domain of prejudice. We discuss potential applications of self-affirmation in prejudice-reduction efforts.

Nationalistic Collective Rituals, Intergroup Relations, and Legitimation of National Social Systems

“…Indeed, studies show that self-affirmation about reductions in defensiveness reaffirmed participants needs to show less ingroup bias and also less outgroup prejudice (for a review, see Cohen & Sherman, 2014). We suspect that our results might have been driven by the same processes at the collective level, particularly because groupaffirmation increases the salience of social identity (Badea & Sherman, 2019). Nevertheless, future research should provide stronger and direct evidence of this process.…”

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

“…Rather than just hosting trainings about implicit bias, organizations might consider offering activities that focus directly on helping majority group attendees recognize and address potential defensiveness. 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).…”

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

“…Acknowledging systemic racism may be threatening to White people, since it suggests that they receive unearned advantages simply because of the color of their skin (i.e., White privilege; Lowery et al, 2007). Further, European Americans may be threatened by the fact that their ingroup has engaged in (and presently engages in) oppressive actions toward other groups and may defensively blame outgroups for misfortunes that result from oppression (Badea & Sherman, 2019). Although we focus in the present research on European Americans, our perspective is consistent with other work suggesting that men (Hideg & Ferris, 2014) as well as members of dominant ethnic groups outside the United States ( Cehaji c-Clancy et al, 2011) defensively downplay their own groups' mistreatment of subordinate groups.…”