Interpersonal Prejudice Research Articles

Biased, but expert: Trade-offs in how stigmatized versus non-stigmatized advocates are perceived and consequences for persuasion

Stigmatized versus non-stigmatized people advocating on behalf of the stigmatized group are perceived as more biased, suggesting that they might be less effective advocates. Yet, research testing whether stigmatized or non-stigmatized advocates are more persuasive has yielded mixed results. The current work builds on previous research to clarify that this occurs because stigmatized advocates are also perceived as more expert on social justice issues. Six studies document these trade-offs in perceptions. Three studies demonstrate that stigmatized and non-stigmatized advocates seem not to differ in their effectiveness because while perceived expertise boosts the effectiveness of stigmatized advocates, perceived bias undermines it. This occurs both when people confront societal inequality and interpersonal prejudice. Despite the lack of difference in persuasiveness, people predict that the stigmatized advocate will be more effective, suggesting that observers may not recognize perceived bias's role in undermining effectiveness. The present findings differ not only from participants' lay theories, but also from conclusions commonly reached by reviews of the literature which suggest that stigmatized advocates may be less effective than their non-stigmatized counterparts. By examining a broader range of perceptions and effects on audience members' attitudes and intentions to behave consistently with advocacy, we provide a more complete view of these effects.

Treatment Approaches to Eating Disorders Among LGBTQIA+ Population: A Narrative Review

IntroductionHistorically, eating disorders (ED) have been regarded as the diseases of heterosexual, affluent white women. Instead, research shows that the population most at risk of ED is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, and asexual/aromantic/agender (LGBTQIA+). Indeed, in addition to many of the same sociocultural influences on body dissatisfaction faced by their peers, LGBTQIA+ individuals experience unique body- and gender-related concerns as well as high levels of stress due to interpersonal prejudice and discrimination.ObjectivesThis narrative review presents an overview of current research on treatment approaches to ED among LGBTQIA+ individuals.MethodsWe conducted a PubMed search for studies published after 1990 using terms that aimed to represent the primary concepts of “eating disorder” and “LGBTQIA+” and “therapy.” Next, we inductively created relevant macro-themes by synthesizing the data from the included articles.ResultsOf 123 PubMed studies, we included 12 studies and identified three relevant macro-themes. The first macro-theme, “ordinary treatments,” focused on efficacy studies of conventional ED therapies applied to this category of patients. In particular, the first study proved the efficacy of the dissonance-based intervention, engaging participants to induce cognitive dissonance concerning the thin-ideal standard of beauty; the second study showed that sexual minorities patients accessing day hospital treatment reported greater overall ED and comorbid symptoms but started treatment with higher scores and improved at a faster rate compared to heterosexual patients; the third study provided evidence that transgender/nonbinary individuals and cisgender individuals showed similar improvement in ED symptoms during higher levels of care treatment, but the first group had less improvement in depression and no improvement in suicidality during ED treatment. The second macro-theme, “relational approach,” investigated newer treatment paradigms involving family and school support, both revealing positive implications for eating and weight-related behaviors. The third macro-theme, “gender-affirming therapy,” focused on medical and surgical treatment toward gender transition, which has been shown to correlate with improvements in body image, ED psychopathology, and psychological functioning.ConclusionsMembers of the LGBTQIA+ community are at greater risk for ED; to our knowledge, there is no targeted treatment that considers the entirety of their experience. These findings denote the need to focus future research efforts on effective treatment strategies specific to sexual and gender identity groups.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Ableism in the Child Welfare System: Findings from a Qualitative Study

Abstract It is well established that parents with disabilities are likely to have adverse experiences within the U.S. child welfare system, including disproportionately high rates of involvement and termination of parental rights. However, no known studies have examined the child welfare system through the lens of ableism. This qualitative phenomenological study included interviews with 15 parents with disabilities, 15 child welfare workers, and 15 attorneys who represent parents. Interviews revealed four levels of ableism within the child welfare system: (1) internalized, (2) interpersonal, (3) institutional, and (4) structural. Participants described their own internalized ableism, offered examples of interpersonal prejudice against disabled parents in the child welfare system, and discussed the institutional practice of using parents’ disabilities as a reason to separate them from their children and deny them services and accommodations. Interviews with parents also revealed that ableism across the child welfare system and other institutions could make it more difficult for them to reunify with their children. At the same time, child welfare workers and attorneys noted that disabled parents are disadvantaged by federally mandated reunification timelines. Ameliorating ableism in the child welfare system requires interventions at each level.

The international sources of prejudice against Shi‘a in the Middle East and North Africa: Original survey evidence from Morocco

ABSTRACT The increasing sectarianization of the international relations of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a defining feature of the region’s contemporary politics. Iran has sought to increase its influence among Shi‘i populations of foreign countries, while Saudi Arabia and other Sunni regimes have moved to curtail it. In heterogeneous and polarized MENA societies, like Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, where the Shi‘a constitute a sizable proportion of the population and compete for political power, it is natural to presume that sectarianization likely increases tension and prejudice against the Shi‘a. Yet, little is known about homogenous MENA societies, where the Shi‘a exist as an infinitesimal, uninfluential minority that does not seek political power. This topic is examined using an original, nationally-representative survey of 2,000 respondents in Morocco. We find that about 59 per cent of individuals express interpersonal prejudice against Moroccan Shi‘a, expressing discomfort at the prospect of having a Shi‘i neighbour. Such prejudice is counter-intuitive, given that Moroccan Shi‘a constitute a miniscule minority – less than .1 per cent of the population. We investigate three hypotheses concerning the sources of anti-Shi‘i prejudice, which locate them in social marginalization, religious beliefs and practices, and views about regional politics. The first two hypotheses are drawn from the existing literature, whereas the third is our unique theoretical contribution. Our results, which find support for the connection between individuals’ views about regional politics and anti-Shi‘i prejudice, advance scholarly understanding of religious diversity in the MENA, showing how international developments can trickle down into interpersonal relations to hinder the acceptance and tolerance of sectarian minorities.

Discursive footwork on the hardwood: players’ negotiations of the NBA as a contested racial arena

Using The Players’ Tribune, we interpret how NBA players discuss race within a racialized sporting organisation that is celebrated and marketed as cosmopolitan and a model for social engagement. We find that during the Black Lives Matter movement players draw on and move between varied visions of sport, the NBA, and its relationship to race. Players reject post-racial conceptions of sport and society and highlight the realities of structural racism and interpersonal prejudice within the NBA and society. At the same time, players affirm notions of the NBA as removed from social problems and a leader for positive racial dialogue. These discursive shifts and collisions indicate that while individualistic and less critical conceptions of sport and race persistently circulate, they are also vulnerable to more race-conscious, structural, and critical articulations. Thus, we argue player engagement with sport, race, and politics on platforms like TPT help set the stage for the current wave of anti-racist actions and statements from high-profile athletes across global sport post-2020 and is linked to how the NBA politically orients itself as a racialized professional sports organisation.

BOXING, RACE, AND BRITISH IDENTITY, 1945–1962

AbstractWith a formal colour bar on British championships operating until 1948, boxing had long been a site of racial discrimination. The abolition of the sport's colour bar was recognition of the wrongness of racial exclusion and it was followed by a celebration of black fighters as local and national heroes. The sport became a rare space where black men could be spoken about, discussed, and celebrated without primary reference to their colour. However, race was never irrelevant, especially as the number of black boxers rose with wider patterns of migration. Race was thus widely discussed in boxing, although there was rarely open discussion of racism. This absence, along with black successes in the ring, masked deep levels of both structural and interpersonal prejudice. Racial differences remained accepted as common sense by white Britons. Indeed, immigration intensified racism in Britain, changing the perceived position of people of colour from exotic novelties to threats to society. Boxing is thus a reminder of the contradictory dynamics of race. Formal mechanisms of exclusion could be removed, while informal mechanisms intensified. Individuals could be celebrated, while people of colour as a group were looked down upon. Black achievements could simultaneously reinforce ideas of black inferiority.

Disfluent Processing of Nonverbal Cues Helps to Explain Anti-Bisexual Prejudice

Recent studies have documented that metacognitive processes underlying social perception contribute to interpersonal prejudice. For example, individuals categorized as lesbian/gay on the basis of their physical appearance are processed disfluently, and such disfluent processing arouses negative social evaluations. Although this pattern of results has replicated across several independent samples, evidence for the social consequences of perceptual disfluency remains limited to a handful of stigmatized groups. Here, we tested disfluency’s effects among a social group that has received scant attention in research on social perception—namely, bisexual individuals. We found that (a) perceivers achieved above-chance accuracy categorizing targets as bisexual versus not bisexual based upon facial photographs, (b) gender-atypical facial features were associated with bisexual categorizations, (c) targets who were categorized as bisexual and targets who personally identified as bisexual were evaluated more negatively than those who were not categorized/identified as bisexual, and (d) disfluent processing of nonverbal cues—especially gendered cues—helped to explain anti-bisexual prejudice. Collectively, these findings contribute to the growing literature on perceptions of sexual orientation and highlight the generalizability of perceptual fluency for understanding diverse forms of prejudice that arise in the early moments of social perception.

Workplace discrimination predicting racial/ethnic socialization across African American, Latino, and Chinese families.

Informed by Kohn and Schooler's (1969) occupational socialization framework, this study examined linkages between racial/ethnic minority mothers' perceptions of racial/ethnic discrimination in the workplace and adolescents' accounts of racial/ethnic socialization in the home. Data were collected from 100 mother-early adolescent dyads who participated in a longitudinal study of urban adolescents' development in the Northeastern United States, including African American, Latino, and Chinese families. Mothers and adolescents completed surveys separately. We found that when mothers reported more frequent institutional discrimination at work, adolescents reported more frequent preparation for bias messages at home, across racial/ethnic groups. Mothers' experiences of interpersonal prejudice at work were associated with more frequent cultural socialization messages among African American and Latino families. Chinese youth reported fewer cultural socialization messages when mothers perceived more frequent interpersonal prejudice at work. Findings are discussed in the context of minority groups' distinct social histories and economic status in the United States.

Fluency of visual processing explains prejudiced evaluations following categorization of concealable identities

Prejudice arises from the categorizations people make upon perceiving others. To date, however, there has been little progress toward understanding how metacognitive processes underlying categorization contribute to prejudice. In two studies, we tested whether processing fluency – the speed with which targets are categorized – explains prejudiced evaluations related to concealable (sexual orientation) and overt (race) social identities. In Study 1, targets categorized as lesbian/gay were evaluated more negatively than targets categorized as straight, and evaluative differences were explained by the fluency with which targets were processed. In Study 2, we replicated our initial findings about the mediating role of processing fluency in evaluations related to sexual orientation categorizations, but found no evidence that fluency explains evaluations related to race categorizations. These findings provide a framework for understanding the perceptual underpinnings of interpersonal prejudice.

Resisting Prejudice Every Day: Exploring Women’s Assertive Responses to Anti-Black Racism, Anti-Semitism, Heterosexism, and Sexism

Past lab and scenario research on sexism suggests that women are more likely to contemplate than to engage in assertive confrontation of prejudice. The present study was designed to explore how the competing cultural forces of activist norms and gender role prescriptions for women to be passive and accommodating may contribute to women’s response strategies. Women were asked to keep diaries of incidents of anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism, heterosexism, and sexism, including why they responded, how they responded, and the consequences of their responses. Participants were about as likely to report they were motivated by activist goals as they were to report being motivated by gender role consistent goals to avoid conflict. Those with gender role-consistent goals were less likely to respond assertively. Participants were more likely to consider assertive responses (for 75% of incidents) than to actually make them (for 40% of incidents). Assertive responders did, however, report better outcomes on a variety of indicators of satisfaction and closure, at the expense of heightened interpersonal conflict. Results are discussed with respect to the personal and social implications of responding to interpersonal prejudice.

Integrating Barriers to Caucasian Lesbians' Career Development and Super's Life‐Span, Life‐Space Approach

Researchers and practitioners do not fully understand the nature and extent of actual and perceived barriers in lesbians' career development (S. L. Morrow, P. A. Gore, & B. W. Campbell, 1996). In this study, 10 lesbian women, ages 42 to 64 years, were interviewed and asked to identify barriers to career development due to sexual identity. Integration of sexual orientation in D. E. Super's (1990) Life‐Span, Life‐Space approach is proposed.

African American women in the workplace: relationships between job conditions, racial bias at work, and perceived job quality.

Although studies have described work processes among employed African American women, few have examined the influence of these processes on job outcomes. This study examined relationships between African American women's exposure to a range of occupational stressors, including two types of racial bias--institutional discrimination and interpersonal prejudice--and their evaluations of job quality. Findings indicated that institutional discrimination and interpersonal prejudice were more important predictors of job quality among these women than were other occupational stressors such as low task variety and decision authority, heavy workloads, and poor supervision. Racial bias in the workplace was most likely to be reported by workers in predominantly white work settings. In addition, Black women who worked in service, semiskilled, and unskilled occupations reported significantly more institutional discrimination, but not more interpersonal prejudice, than did women in professional, managerial, and technical occupations or those in sales and clerical occupations.