The hard-knock life? Whites claim hardships in response to racial inequity, L. Taylor Phillips and Brian S. Lowery

The hard-knock life? Whites claim hardships in response to racial inequity, L. Taylor Phillips and Brian S. Lowery

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Volume 61, November 2015, Pages 12–18

Abstract

Racial inequity continues to plague America, yet many Whites still doubt the existence of racial advantages, limiting progress and cooperation. What happens when people are faced with evidence that their group benefits from privilege? We suggest such evidence will be threatening and that people will claim hardships to manage this threat. These claims of hardship allow individuals to deny that they personally benefit from privilege, while still accepting that group-level inequity exists. Experiments 1a and 1b show that Whites exposed to evidence of racial privilege claim to have suffered more personal life hardships than those not exposed to evidence of privilege. Experiment 2 shows that self-affirmation reverses the effect of exposure to evidence of privilege on hardship claims, implicating the motivated nature of hardship claims. Further, affirmed participants acknowledge more personal privilege, which is associated with increased support for inequity-reducing policies.