Ask, answer, and announce: Three stages in perceiving and responding to discrimination

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247505976 Ask, Answer, and Announce: Three stages in perceiving and responding to discrimination Article in European Review of Social Psychology · January 2003 DOI: 10.1080/10463280340000090 CITATIONS READS 52 55 6 authors, including: Charles Stangor Janet Swim 57 PUBLICATIONS 3,655 77 PUBLICATIONS 4,123 University of Maryland, Col… CITATIONS Pennsylvania State Univer… CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE All content following this page was uploaded by Janet Swim on 02 May 2014. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. This art icle was downloaded by: [ 71.58.90.112] On: 02 May 2014, At : 05: 24 Publisher: Rout ledge I nform a Lt d Regist ered in England and Wales Regist ered Num ber: 1072954 Regist ered office: Mort im er House, 37- 41 Mort im er St reet , London W1T 3JH, UK European Review of Social Psychology Publicat ion det ails, including inst ruct ions f or aut hors and subscript ion inf ormat ion: ht t p: / / www. t andf online. com/ loi/ pers20 Ask, Answer, and Announce: Three stages in perceiving and responding to discrimination Charles St angor Sechrist c a , Janet K. Swim , Jamie DeCost er & Alison Ot t enbreit d b , Gret chen B. , Kat herine L. Van Allen a a a Universit y of Maryland , USA b The Pennsylvania St at e Universit y , USA c Universit y at Buf f alo, The St at e Universit y of New York , USA d The Free Universit y of Amst erdam , The Net herlands Published online: 04 Mar 2011. To cite this article: Charles St angor , Janet K. Swim , Gret chen B. Sechrist , Jamie DeCost er , Kat herine L. Van Allen & Alison Ot t enbreit (2003) Ask, Answer, and Announce: Three st ages in perceiving and responding t o discriminat ion, European Review of Social Psychology, 14: 1, 277-311 To link to this article: ht t p: / / dx. doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 10463280340000090 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTI CLE Taylor & Francis m akes every effort t o ensure t he accuracy of all t he inform at ion ( t he “ Cont ent ” ) cont ained in t he publicat ions on our plat form . However, Taylor & Francis, our agent s, and our licensors m ake no represent at ions or warrant ies what soever as t o t he accuracy, com plet eness, or suit abilit y for any purpose of t he Cont ent . Any opinions and views expressed in t his publicat ion are t he opinions and views of t he aut hors, and are not t he views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. 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Term s & Condit ions of access and use can be found at ht t p: / / www.t andfonline.com / page/ t erm s- and- condit ions EUROPEAN REVIEW OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2003, 14, 277–311 Ask, Answer, and Announce: Three stages in perceiving and responding to discrimination Charles Stangor University of Maryland, College Park, USA Janet K. Swim The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 Gretchen B. Sechrist University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, USA Jamie DeCoster The Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Katherine L. Van Allen and Alison Ottenbreit University of Maryland, College Park, USA Discrimination towards members of low-status groups takes a variety of forms, and results in a variety of negative consequences for its victims. Furthermore, discrimination may influence its targets either directly (for instance, when housing discrimination makes insurance, mortgage rates, or rents higher for African Americans than for whites) or indirectly, that is via perceptions on the part of the stigmatised. In the latter case the outcomes are caused or amplified by perceptions on the part of the victim that he or she is the target of discrimination. This chapter focuses on current research concerning factors that influence the perception of discrimination and its indirect influence on individuals. We review work from our own lab as well as from the field more broadly, focusing on research that attempts to explain contextual and individual variability in how events that are potentially due to discrimination are initially perceived, subsequently interpreted, and then publicly reported or withheld. Address correspondence to: Charles Stangor, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA. Preparation of this chapter was supported in part by National Science Foundation grant 990722 to Charles Stangor and Janet K. Swim. # 2003 Psychology Press Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/02699931.html DOI: 10.1080/10463280340000090 Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 278 STANGOR ET AL. Over the past decades social psychologists have published a substantial amount of research concerning the development, maintenance, and change of stereotypes and prejudice (e.g., Brewer & Brown, 1998; Fiske, 1998). This work is important from a theoretical perspective, because it provides insight into the basic processes of person perception. But the research is also assumed to have practical implications. Social scientists find it important to study stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination because we assume these beliefs have negative influences on their targets—the stereotyped and the stigmatised. Discrimination directed at members of low-status groups is expected to take a variety of forms, and to have a variety of harmful effects. At one end of the continuum are overt hostility, violence, and genocide. At the other end are the everyday hassles that, although minor, accumulate over time (Contrada et al., 2000; Kessler, Mickelson, & Williams, 1999; Swim, Hyers, Cohen, Ferguson, & Bylsma, 2003b; Swim, Pearson, & Johnston, 2003d). Even these everyday, ‘‘minor’’ forms of discrimination can be problematic because they may produce anger and anxiety among stigmatised group members. Moreover, over the long term, these hassles, like other daily hassles, can lead to other psychological problems (e.g., Landrine & Klonoff, 1996; Landrine, Klonoff, Gibbs, Manning, & Lund, 1995). Discrimination may influence its targets either directly (for instance, when housing discrimination makes insurance, mortgage rates, or rents higher for African Americans than for Whites) or indirectly, that is via perceptions on the part of the stigmatised (Stangor & Sechrist, 1998). The direct effects of prejudice and discrimination are commonly observed in employment, income, housing, education, and medical care (Braddock & McPartland, 1987; Cash, Gillen, & Burns, 1977; Neckerman & Kirshenman, 1991; Treiman & Hartmann, 1981; Yinger, 1994). For instance, Blacks are less likely to receive major therapeutic procedures for many conditions and often do not receive necessary treatments, have delayed diagnoses, or fail to manage chronic diseases. In one recent study, Bach, Cramer, Warren, and Begg (1999) found that Blacks die from one form of lung cancer more often than Whites, possibly as the result of their lower rate of surgical treatment, and similar problems have been identified for other minorities (Williams & Rucker, 2000). Discrimination has been blamed for the large percentage of Blacks living in poverty, and their lack of access to high-paying jobs (Commonwealth Fund, 2001; Williams & Rucker, 2000; Williams & Williams-Morris, 2000). African Americans have elevated mortality rates for 8 of the 10 leading causes of death in the US (Williams, 1999), and have on average less access to and receive poorer-quality health care, even controlling for other variables such as level of health insurance status. Suicide rates among lesbians and gays are substantially higher than that of the general Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 279 population, and it has been argued that this in part due to the negative outcomes of prejudice, including negative attitudes and resulting social isolation (Halpert, 2002). Direct effects can occur without the knowledge of the individual who is the target of discrimination. An African American may receive poorer health care than an equivalent white patient would have, for instance, without being aware of this discrimination, or a woman may be assigned a lower salary than an equivalent male employee would have been in equivalent circumstances. Because most instances of discrimination are single events, they are easy for the victims to miss. Indeed, Crosby, Clayton, Alksnis, and Hemker (1986) found that unless the discriminatory events were presented in a format in which the group comparisons were aggregated across a number of individuals, they were not interpreted as due to discrimination. Although discrimination may in many cases occur out of the awareness of the target, this is not always the case. Indeed, indirect effects occur when an individual perceives that he or she is, has been, or will be the victim of discrimination, and these perceptions influence relevant outcomes. The idea that perceptions about being the target of discrimination are important determinants of social judgements has a long literature history within social psychology (e.g. Goffman, 1963). For instance, in a classic study demonstrating the importance of indirect effects, Kleck and Strenta (1980) found that individuals who were led to believe that interaction partners thought that they were stigmatised (either that they had a facial scar or were epileptic) perceived those partners more negatively than those who did not think the partner thought they were stigmatised, even though the partners were in fact entirely unaware of the ‘‘stigma’’, and the partners’ behaviour was not actually more negative than their reactions to control participants. More recently, Pinel (2002) found that women who expect to be stereotyped acted more harshly towards a man they believed to be sexist. This behaviour then elicited unfavourable responses from the male participants. Other examples of indirect effects include the recent research on stereotype threat, which demonstrates the potential negative effects of perceptions about the beliefs of others on task performance (e.g., Steele & Aronson, 1995; see Jones & Stangor, 2003, for a review). Individuals who believe that they are the victims of discrimination may also begin to avoid or distrust members of the relevant social category (a sense of ‘‘cultural mistrust’’, e.g., Terrell & Terrell, 1981). Stigmatised individuals who report experiencing frequent exposure to discrimination or other forms of unfair treatment also report more psychological distress, depression, anger, anxiety, and lower levels of life satisfaction and happiness (Anderson & Armstead, 1995; Corning, 2002; Glauser, 1999; Kessler et al., 1999; Klonoff, Landrine, & Ullman, 1999; Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 280 STANGOR ET AL. Landrine & Klonoff, 1996; Landrine et al. 1995, Schultz, Israel, Williams, Parker, Becker, & James, 2000; Swim, Hyers, Cohen, & Ferguson, 2001; Williams, Spencer, & Jackson, 1999; Williams & Williams-Morris, 2000). Although the observed correlations between perceptions of discrimination and negative health outcomes are consistent with direct effects, because the results are correlational there are of course a variety of other potential explanations. Particularly, it is possible that indirect effects contribute to the outcomes—that is, the perception of being discriminated against may itself produce negative health outcomes, for instance because it creates anxiety, anger, or control deprivation. Research from our labs has demonstrated one indirect outcome of expecting to be a victim of stereotyping. We have found that expecting to be a solo member of a group leads people to expect to be stereotyped (Cohen & Swim, 1995). Furthermore, for women whose confidence had been lowered (but not for men), these expectations lead to a desire to avoid participating in such groups. In real-life settings such avoidance may in some cases be adaptive and appropriate, but in other cases it may lead people to self-select out of important social groups. Expectations of being stereotyped can also potentially explain why people are uncertain about their future performance when they are expecting to be a solo, and why they perform poorly in such contexts. In one study, Stangor, Carr, and Kiang (1998) had participants first complete a word-finding task. Half of the participants were given expectations that they had performed well on this task, whereas the other half were given more ambiguous performance feedback. Then participants were then asked to predict how well they would perform on a similar task if they completed it either alone, or in a group of individuals. Furthermore, the participants who made judgements about their performance in groups were led to believe that the group would be made up of either similar others (those who shared their gender and college major) or different others (individuals who did not share either their gender or major). As shown in Figure 1, participants expected to perform better in groups than they did if they were to work alone (perhaps because they expected they might get help from others in the group). More importantly, prior expectations about task performance influenced expectations for subsequent performance when individuals expected to work alone or in groups in which they were the majority. In these cases individuals who believed they did well on the first task predicted they would do well on the second task, in comparison to those who received ambiguous performance feedback. However, these prior expectations were completely undermined in the dissimilar other conditions. That is, getting positive feedback was no better than receiving ambiguous feedback when they anticipated being a solo member of their gender or college major in a group of different others. These PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 281 Prior Performance Expectations Performance Expectations Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 Positive Ambiguous 6.5 6 5.5 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 Alone Similar Group Dissimilar Group Figure 1. Performance expectations as a function of prior task performance feedback and expected context for task performance. From Stangor et al. (1998). negative expectations also play a role in leading solos to actually perform poorly (Lord & Saenz, 1985; Sekaquaptewa & Thompson, 2003). In addition to contextual variables, such as solo status, that can influence the likelihood of perceiving events as related to discrimination, there are also a number of individual difference variables that moderate the occurrence of indirect effects across people. In general terms, individuals who are high in public self-consciousness or who are high self-monitors may be particularly aware of the social situation, and may therefore be particularly likely to notice instances of discrimination. These variables may also influence how people choose to respond to discrimination (Feldman Barrett & Swim, 1998; Swim, Quinliven, Fitzgerald, & Eysell, 2003e). In terms of specific social categories, identification with and salience of the relevant category increases attributions to discrimination on the basis of the category (Operario & Fiske, 2001; Waters, 1994). Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 282 STANGOR ET AL. Similarly, individuals who are high in sensitivity to rejection based on their racial category have been found to be more likely to report more experiences with negative race events the course of a 3-week diary study (Mendoza-Denton, Downey, Purdie, Davis, & Pietrzak, 2002). A heightened sensitivity to discrimination can have positive outcomes, for instance if it activates self-protection motivations and leads individuals to select appropriate coping responses (e.g., Hebl & Kleck, 2000; Mallett, 2003). On the other hand, sensitivity may also have negative effects. Racebased sensitivity is associated with more difficult transitions and poorer performance in college, as well as less positive feelings about professors (Mendoza-Denton et al., 2002). In short, contextual or individual variation in the tendency of stigmatised group members to expect (or not expect) to be the targets of discrimination and to perceive that they have been targets of discrimination may influence their behaviours and psychological outcomes. These behaviours and outcomes may be independent of the actual amount of prejudice and discrimination they currently experience (Feldman Barrett & Swim, 1998). In order to better understand these indirect effects, it is important to understand how and when people initially perceive, make attributions to, and respond to discrimination. Differentiating direct and indirect effects is particularly important from an applied perspective, as interventions to reduce the harmful effects of discrimination would be differentially tailored depending on the underlying mechanisms. In the remainder of this chapter we will focus on current research concerning factors that influence perceptions of discrimination. We review work from our own lab as well as from the field more broadly. We will focus on research that attempts to explain contextual and individual variability in how events that are potentially due to discrimination are initially perceived, subsequently interpreted, and then publicly reported or withheld. This approach is in keeping with other research programmes that have focused on understanding variability in responses to discrimination (e.g., Crocker, 1999; Friedman & Brownell, 1995; Miller & Downey, 1999). THE THREE STAGES In our laboratories, we have assumed that the perceptions of discrimination may influence individuals’ cognitions, emotions, and behaviour at any one of three stages, as shown in Figure 2. We assume that one or more perceived ‘‘incidents’’, which refer to behaviours directed towards individuals or groups, and which may or may not constitute discrimination, begin the process. In most of our research the incident involves a single event, although the sequence might be started by a series of events over time, for Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 Figure 2. Three stages in perceiving discrimination. 283 Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 284 STANGOR ET AL. instance the perception that a work environment condones sexism.1 The sequence ends with one or more ‘‘outcomes’’, which refer to potential effects on the targets. In addition to presuming the potential for direct effects of incidents upon outcomes, we assume that individual interpretations of and reactions to perceived discrimination may themselves (indirectly) influence outcomes. Furthermore, the nature of these outcomes is assumed to be influenced by the extent to which the perceiver engages in one or more of three information-processing stages. These stages include an initial asking stage, a subsequent interpretation or answering stage, and a public expression of events (announcing). That is, (1) individuals may or may not initially wonder whether an incident might be discriminatory or that an individual or group might harbour prejudice towards them. The asking could be initiated by any of a wide variety of variables, including characteristics of the incident, information about the perceiver, or having the question raised by others. Assuming that the individual questions whether the incident might have involved discrimination, the individual (2) may or may not interpret the behaviour as prejudicial or discriminatory. And finally, assuming that the attribution process leads to an interpretation of the behaviour as due to discrimination (the answer to the question is ‘‘yes’’), the individual (3) may or may not decide to overtly report to others that he or she has perceived the event as discriminatory, or to confront the perpetrator. Each of the three stages may have unique effects on perceptions, and may be influenced by both individual-difference and contextual variables. Furthermore, the current approach explicitly allows the possibility that individual or contextual differences may increase perceptions of discrimination at one stage, and yet at the same time decrease perceptions of discrimination at other stages, and that these discrepancies may predict particular outcomes. For instance, an individual who has low status or power in an organisation may be particularly likely to interpret the negative behaviour of high-status individuals directed at low-status individuals as constituting discrimination, as a result of an increased sensitivity to the occurrence of discrimination. Yet at the same time low-status individuals may be particularly unwilling to report the experienced discrimination out of fear of negative consequences, thus decreasing the likelihood of announcing this conclusion to others. This discrepancy between interpreting the event (stage 2) and reporting discrimination (stage 3) may have particularly negative outcomes on the individual, including loss of selfrespect or shame resulting from the perception that one has been untrue to one’s beliefs. 1 Although we do not address it here, this difference is likely to be critical in terms of how the precipitating event or events are perceived and their effects on subsequent processing. Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 285 Although Figure 2 suggests that the three stages are sequential (moving from the top to the bottom of the figure), it is possible that there could also be some reciprocal or inverse influences. For instance, individuals who fail to confront discrimination may publicly agree with another person’s conclusions about an incident being the result of discrimination and this public statement may alter, perhaps through cognitive dissonance, the way they personally perceive the incident. In the following sections we consider research that has addressed each of the three stages outlined in Figure 2. At this point in our research programme we believe that we have documented effects that occur at each of the three stages, although we acknowledge that there is in some cases at least some ambiguity in our research concerning which stage is operating (it has been particularly difficult to disentangle Stage 1 and Stage 2). We have not yet, however, found evidence for either interactions between stages or for reciprocal influences. We expect that these issues will be addressed more fully over the next few years. Despite these limitations, we believe that our approach is heuristic, in the sense that it provides a framework for understanding the relevant processes, makes predictions about how and when contextual and individual difference variables will be important, and specifies the important dependent measures for study. Stage 1: Asking Stage 1 involves the initial activation of the question about whether an incident is discriminatory. For instance, when a woman is denied a job in a firm that has predominately male employees, she might (or might not) wonder whether this was a result of gender-based discrimination. Theoretically, this initial asking is expected to be determined by the current construct accessibility of discrimination as an explanatory category. Discrimination, and the resulting tendency to question whether discrimination or prejudice is a cause for an incident, may be accessible either as the result of contextual activation or on the basis of chronic individual differences. Contextual activation of discrimination Existing research has focused on delineating the characteristics of behaviours and the social contexts that activate the construct of discrimination. Certain types of discrimination are more prototypical than other types, and thus more likely to be initially recognised. For instance, Marti, Bobier, and Baron (2000) found that race and gender discrimination were more accessible than age and weight discrimination, and were therefore more easily recognised. Furthermore, the role of accessibility in initial Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 286 STANGOR ET AL. detection was indicated by their finding that explicitly priming prejudice only increased the detection of initially less accessible forms of prejudice. Prototypical behaviours are also those that have prototypical perpetrators (Men; Whites) and prototypical targets (Women, Blacks; e.g., Inman & Baron, 1996). As such, these types of behaviours should also result in greater activation of the discrimination construct. Other research also indicates that particular behaviours vary in the extent to which they are seen as prototypical of discrimination. We (Swim, Mallett, Russo-Devosa, & Stangor, 2003c) have found, for instance, that traditional gender role behaviours (e.g., expressing disapproval for exhibiting behaviour counter to stereotypes about one’s group) are more likely to be labelled as sexist than is unwanted sexual attention (e.g., sexual touching when the person knew or should have known that the other person was not interested or it was inappropriate for the situation), suggesting that the former are more likely to activate the concept of sexism than the latter. The use of sexist language may not be perceived as prototypically sexist because it occurs frequently and may not be seen to have negative consequences. We have also found that exposure to discrimination increases its construct accessibility. Johnston and Swim (1999) had women read about a proposed study in which men would be asked to rate beer advertisements and women would be asked to rate wine advertisements. To activate the construct of discrimination, some of the women were further told that there were either more beer or more wine advertisements to rate, which meant that either men or women would have the opportunity to earn more extra credit. A third group of women was told that men and women would receive equal opportunity to get credit. The participants were then given a word fragment completion task. Imbedded in this task were six words that could be completed as relating to prejudice (e.g., ‘‘p r e _ _ d _ _ _’’ which could be completed as either president or prejudice). As expected, participants who read about men being able to earn more points than women (M = 2.12) and women being able to earn more points than men (M = 2.04) completed more word fragments in terms of their prejudice-related response than those in the control condition (M = 1.52). Differences in the context in which behaviours occur may also influence initial thoughts about discrimination. As we have discussed above, being in solo status increases the accessibility of discrimination (e.g., Cohen & Swim, 1995; Stangor et al., 1998). Research on accessibility of constructs also indicates that recent or frequent activation of the construct is likely to result in the activation of the construct (Higgins & King, 1981). Thus, for example, organisational climates in which sexism is a frequent topic of conversation among individuals is likely to produce an overall increase in asking, and recent or frequent PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 287 accusations or confrontations with others who are perceived to discriminate will likely also increase accessibility. Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 Individual differences in the accessibility of discrimination In addition to contextual variation, some individuals are more likely to have discrimination chronically accessible and should therefore be more likely to question the extent to which incidents are discriminatory. For instance, members of minority racial groups may be more aware of racial disparities and this will likely influence the extent to which they perceive events in racial terms (Waters, 1994; Stangor, Lynch, Duan, & Glass, 1992). Moreover, diary research indicates that individuals for whom discrimination is chronically accessible, such as those who are sensitive to race-based rejection or feel threatened by the possibility of gender stereotyping, are more likely to notice its everyday manifestation of discrimination in comparison to those who are lower in accessibility (Mendoza-Denton et al., 2002; Swim et al., 2001). This sensitivity might be the result of prior exposure to discrimination either directed at oneself or other group members, or may be due to being part of a social milieu in which discrimination is seen as prevalent. Many analyses of the psychology of the stigmatised argue that members of stigmatised groups will be particularly aware of or sensitive to the potential for discrimination (Crocker & Major, 1989; Swim, Aikin, Hall, & Hunter, 1995). Allport (1954) argued that minority groups might use the ‘‘ego defence’’ of ‘‘hypervigilance’’, and thus overestimate the occurrence of discrimination (p. 144). Not only is such a prediction highly intuitive, but it follows from many considerations of the psychology of being a target of discrimination. Stigmatised individuals are (by definition) typically the targets of discrimination, and since discrimination represents a potential threat to one’s well-being, they should be particularly wary of the potential for it (Feldman Barrett & Swim, 1998; Inman & Baron, 1996). Despite this latter possibility, our research has found little evidence that stigmatised groups are hypersensitive about the occurrence of discrimination in their environments. In contrast there appears to be evidence of insensitivity. As one example of this apparent insensitivity, Table 1 shows the results of research from our lab in which we simply asked college students to indicate the categories that they belonged to in terms of which they had experienced discrimination (Stangor, Sechrist, & Swim, 2002). This procedure is based on prior research that has assessed the construct accessibility of categories in terms of priority of activation in thought-listing tasks (Higgins & King, 1981). Participants were allowed to list only one category, and were told that only if they were absolutely unable to think of any category should they 288 STANGOR ET AL. TABLE 1 Percentage of students indicating they had been the targets of discrimination on the basis of various social categories, by gender and ethnicity Category Male Female Category Non-white White Gender Ethnicity Religion Other None 2% 21% 10% 18% 50% 9% 21% 11% 17% 42% Ethnicity Gender Religion Other None 48% 3% 5% 8% 36% 9% 9% 14% 22% 47% Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 A. Gender of participant. B. Ethnicity of participant. leave the question blank. To help ensure that our measure assessed initial perceptions of the occurrence of discrimination, free of concerns about public reporting, participants were guaranteed complete anonymity. We coded each response into one of four categories. Table 1a shows the results broken down by gender and Table 1b shows them broken down by race (white vs non-white). Supporting the assumption that stigmatised individuals are more accessible for discrimination in comparison to the non-stigmatised, women were significantly more likely to indicate that they had been discriminated against on the basis of gender in comparison to men, and nonwhite participants were more likely to indicate that they had been discriminated against on the basis of ethnicity in comparison to white (European American) participants. However, 91% of women did not mention gender and 52% of minorities did not mention ethnicity. Also, almost half of the women and 36% of the minorities indicated that they could not think of a group that they belonged to upon which they experienced discrimination. These data do not seem consistent with the idea that the stigmatised are hypersensitive to the occurrence of discrimination directed at them. Rather, these students did not report seeing much discrimination at all—with a large proportion finding it impossible to list even a single category. Although it is possible that the participants were embarrassed to report being the targets of discrimination, we attempted to minimise this by encouraging honesty and making the responses entirely anonymous. However, participating in a study that was clearly about discrimination would have been expected to, if anything, increase the accessibility of discrimination and thus increase reporting.2 2 These results are not likely a function of college students’ lack of experience with or observation of discrimination. When college students were asked to record their observations of sexism and racism in a daily diary they typically reported at least one incident every other week (Swim et al., 2001; Swim, Hyers, Cohen, Fitzgerald, & Bylsma, 2003b). Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 289 One limitation of these data is that it is possible that they assess, at least to some degree, the answering as well as the asking stage. That is, if individuals do not perceive that they are the victims of discrimination, we assume that this is because they do not initially see it. However, it is possible that they have in fact been suspicious about events and subsequently reinterpreted them as being due to other factors. However, we have also conducted research that is designed to assess the asking stage more unambiguously. If there is individual variability in the extent to which people are suspicious about discrimination, then this variability should function as a type of social schema which should influence how they remember events that occur to them. Assessing the impact of schemas on memory for relevant information provides an unobtrusive measure that should assess only Stage 1 processing—the tendency to initially encode or fail to encode information in terms of discrimination. Using the free-response measure that we have just described, Stangor et al. (2002, Experiment 3) selected women for whom gender discrimination was an accessible construct because they had spontaneously indicated gender as a category upon which they had been the target of discrimination, as well as women who were not accessible because they had not indicated that they had been so discriminated against. The women believed that they would be participating in a study concerning ‘‘reactions to the media’’. After reading and signing a consent form, participants responded to a series of headlines, supposedly extracted from local newspapers, which were presented sequentially via computer. The participants were asked to rate how interested they would be in reading the article that they expected would accompany each of the headlines by rating it on a scale from 1 (not at all interesting) to 7 (extremely interesting). We included this measure only to make sure that the participants paid attention to the headlines. A total of 48 headlines were presented. Of these headlines 12 dealt with sexual discrimination (for instance, ‘‘College women lose battle for equal rights’’; ‘‘Local employer indicted on sexism charges’’), 12 pertained to discrimination against African Americans (for instance, ‘‘Country club under scrutiny for denying membership to African-Americans’’; ‘‘Black males more likely to receive stricter sentencing than white males’’), and 24 were about miscellaneous topics (‘‘Stereo equipment stolen from dorm room’’; ‘‘Marijuana use again increasing on campus’’). To reduce the likelihood of any differences in interpretation of the meaning of the headlines, and thus to assure that we were assessing the asking and not the answering stage, the headlines were selected to unambiguously portray discrimination. After reading and rating all of the headlines, the participants were given instructions to complete a short distractor task designed to clear short-term memory. Participants listed as many US states as they could think of for 5 minutes. Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 290 STANGOR ET AL. After completing the distractor task, participants were provided with a test set of 72 headlines (48 original and 24 new) and asked to rate whether or not they had seen the headline in the first rating session. If they thought the headline had previously been viewed, participants were asked to indicate ‘‘old’’, whereas if they believed the headline had not been previously viewed, they were to indicate ‘‘new’’. The specific headlines that appeared in the initial presentation and those that appeared in the memory test were randomly chosen for each participant, and the order of presentation of the items was also random. On the basis of signal detection theory, we operationalised both a measure of recognition sensitivity (A’) and a measure of response bias (B’’), separately for each of the three types of headlines. Sensitivity refers to the ability of the participant to accurately indicate whether a headline had or had not previously been seen, whereas response bias refers to a tendency to set a liberal or conservative criterion for reporting an item as having been seen. We expected that both variables might be influenced by gender prejudice accessibility, but there were no significant effects on the response bias measure. However, on the recognition sensitivity measure, a significant interaction between the two variables was found. As shown in Table 2, women for whom gender discrimination was an accessible category showed better recognition memory for the sexist headlines than did the women for whom sexism was less accessible. In contrast, there were no significant differences between high- and low-accessibility women’s memory for racerelated or miscellaneous headlines. We again did not find any evidence for hyper-accessibility. The high-accessible women did not show greater sensitivity for the sexist headlines than for the other types. Rather, it was the low-accessible women who had lower perceptual accuracy in comparison to the high-accessible women, and in comparison to memory for the other headline types. We have found similar results in another published study (Stangor, Sechrist, & Swim, 1999). TABLE 2 Recognition sensitivity by gender discrimination accessibility and headline type Gender discrimination accessibility High Low Headline type Sexism a .98 (.02) .86b (.25) Racism a .95 (.05) .91a (.12) Miscellaneous .97a (.03) .93a (.05) Standard deviations in parentheses. Means within a column that do not share a superscript are significantly different at p 5 .05 by planned comparison. PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 291 Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 Summary In summary, although they must be made somewhat tentatively, we can nevertheless draw several conclusions about initial asking. There is an array of contextual variables that are likely to influence the accessibility of the construct of discrimination and as such, the likelihood that people will consider the possibility that discrimination has occurred. There are also individual differences in the tendency for individuals to be concerned about discrimination. Moreover, although some groups are more likely to think about discrimination than other groups, many of the college students in our studies indicated that they had never experienced discrimination on the basis of any categories to which they belonged, and those that have discrimination more accessible can be more accurately characterised as sensitive than necessarily biased in their attention to such incidents. Although these variables may also influence the outcomes of Stage 2 and Stage 3 processing, existing research is consistent with the idea that they also relate to initial noticing or asking. In terms of potential outcomes of Stage 1 processing, if an individual never asks the question—that is, does not even consider an event as potentially due to discrimination—then the path from the incident to the outcome reverts to a direct effect. The event may still have harmful outcomes, but if it does it is independent of any perceptual indirect effects. On the other hand, if the question is asked, the second stage of information processing comes into play, and it is to this stage that we now turn. Stage 2: Interpretation of potentially discriminatory events After a behaviour has initially been categorised as potentially being due to discrimination (that is, the outcome of Stage 1 is an initial activation of the possibility of discrimination), an individual will attempt to determine whether they have or have not observed discrimination. A woman may wonder whether a man treated her in a sexist manner, and then learn that he has differentially treated men and women in the past, leading her to be relatively certain that the man is sexist. Alternatively, she may determine that there is an alternative, nondiscriminatory, explanation for his behaviour, for instance deciding that the negative outcomes reflect her lack of ability in the domain, eventually concluding that she was not treated in a sexist manner. Underlying processes Whereas Stage 1 processing is assumed to be determined by the category accessibility of discrimination as an interpretive category and to occur relatively automatically, Stage 2 is assumed to be determined by the Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 292 STANGOR ET AL. application of relevant beliefs to a judgement. Which beliefs are activated and applied may be determined by either cognitive (for instance, cognitive load or judgements of what type of information is relevant for making a judgement of discrimination), affective (e.g., mood as information), or motivational (for instance, the denial or enhancement of discrimination to maintain a positive self-image or a sense of a just world) processes. Stage 2 processing may either increase or decrease the likelihood of interpreting an event as due to discrimination. For instance, according to the attributional ambiguity model of Crocker and Major (1989), stigmatised individuals should in many cases prefer to make attributions for negative events to discrimination rather than to lack of ability, because doing so is self-protective (Major, Quinton, & Schmader, 2003). On the other hand, individuals may also prefer in some contexts to minimise or deny that they or others have experienced discrimination. The conditions under which each of these two processes may occur are summarised by Major, Quinton, & McCoy, 2002, and by Major, McCoy, Kaiser, & Quinton 2003 (this volume). There are many potential variables that could influence the outcome of Stage 2 processing, and we can only consider a relatively limited number here. Cognitive load. Consistent with existing ‘‘dual process’’ models of decision making, we have found that cognitive capacity can influence the processing of information related to discrimination. DeCoster and Swim (2002) had female participants read a description of a woman who was interviewing for either a stereotypically masculine (electrician) or a stereotypically feminine (daycare worker) job. The male interviewer did not offer her the position, and this decision was justified with either a strong or a weak reason. Crossed with this manipulation of job type, half of the participants made these decisions under high cognitive load (while being asked to count the number of pronouns in the stimuli as they read them), whereas the other half of the participants were not given a cognitive load. Demonstrating that they were making use of the job description in determining whether the interviewer’s behaviour might have been the result of discrimination, the women were more likely to conclude that the boss was prejudiced against women in the masculine job than in the feminine job conditions, regardless of cognitive load. However, the ability to systematically process the reviewers’ justifications varied as a function of the load manipulation. When under cognitive load, participants’ conclusions were unaffected by the strength of the interviewer’s justifications, indicating that they were unable to systematically process the information about the reason for the decision, and simply categorised the behaviour as discriminatory. However, when participants were not under cognitive load, they were more likely to conclude that the interviewer was prejudiced against the woman PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 293 Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 when he gave a weak argument for not hiring her than when he gave a strong argument. This research illustrates that both heuristic and systematic processing play a role in perceptions of prejudice and discrimination. Attributional processing. Stage 2 processing is expected to include, in part, attributional processing of relevant information. The outcome of attributional processing about negative behaviours can be influenced both by assessments of people’s intent to engage in the behaviour, as well as by the amount of harm done to the recipient. As Jones (1997), put it, ‘‘acts that constitute bias depend, in part on the target’s reaction, as well as the actor’s intention’’ (p. 306). To assess the joint effects of intent and harm in the interpretation of discrimination, Swim, Scott, Sechrist, Campbell and Stangor (2003f) had participants read vignettes about events in which women and men were treated differently. The scenarios varied in terms of the amount of harm done to the woman and the degree to which the man intended to engage in the behaviour. After reading the scenarios, women were asked to rate the extent to which the man was sexist and the action was discriminatory. As Figure 3 illustrates, these results revealed that the degree of both intent and harm influenced the judgement that an event was due to discrimination, although intent was more important than harm, in that harm did not add to perceptions of discrimination when there was evidence of high intent. Furthermore, the results also indicated that when information about either intent or harm was not present, perceivers nevertheless made assumptions about it from the presence of the other. For instance, when a target person was harmed, perceivers tended to assume that the actor intended to discriminate. This finding has potential implications for intergroup relations, because it indicates that different people may draw different conclusions about the causes of an event based on the information they have available to them, and which information they find most important. As an example, targets more than actors may focus more on the harm done to a victim, whereas actors more than targets may focus more on the intent. If this were the case, these different interpretations and emphases could result in misunderstandings and conflict. Individual differences. Individual differences are also likely to influence Stage 2 processing, both because of differences in the extent to which individuals are motivated to collect and process information, as well as because of differences in the use and interpretation of information available. For instance, targets of prejudice are more likely than observers to be influenced by the harm that the target experiences when making judgements of prejudice and discrimination (Swim et al., 2003b). This could be because targets have greater access to the extent to which an incident has harmed 294 STANGOR ET AL. No harm No information about harm High harm 5 Mean judgment Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 6 4 3 2 1 0 No intent No information about intent High intent Figure 3. The role of intent and harm in attributions to discrimination. From Swim et al. (2003f). them than observers. Also, Whites are less likely than Blacks to attribute a White supervisor’s negative treatment of Black employee to prejudice when the White supervisor’s negative treatment was constrained by circumstances (Johnson, Simmons, Trawalter, Ferguson, & Reed, 2002). This race difference can be explained by race differences in perceptions of the prevalence of racism. Differences in racial identity can also influence interpretation of incidents. Operario and Fiske (2001) had minority participants, pre-selected as either high or low ethnically identified, interact with a White, female confederate, who after a brief, awkward interaction, left the room and did not return. Operario and Fiske found that individuals who were more identified with their ethnic group made more attributions to prejudice and rated the PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 295 Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 confederate as significantly more discriminatory than did those low on ethnic identity. Similarly, Major et al. (2002) found that gender identity predicted women’s attributions to sexism in situations in which the true causes of the events were ambiguous, and yet in which discrimination had been primed because a confederate had indicated that she had heard that the experimenters treated men and women differently. The role of affect. The extent to which an event is interpreted as being the outcome of discrimination may also be influenced by the individual’s current affective state. Sechrist, Swim, and Mark (2002) induced women into positive or negative mood states using the Velten Mood Induction procedure. The mood induction involves reading 60 positive (‘‘I feel cheerful and lively’’) or negative (‘‘My life is so tiresome—the same old thing day after day depresses me’’) sentences. Then half of the participants were provided with an external attribution for their current mood state. Specifically, half of the participants were informed that their current feelings may have been influenced by previous questionnaires and then were asked to indicate how they currently felt. Thus, they were reminded of the earlier positive or negative mood-producing task before indicating their mood. All other participants were also asked to report their current feelings, but they were not given a potential external attribution for their mood (cf. Schwarz & Clore, 1996; Wyer & Carlston, 1979). Participants then reported on their perceptions of the extent of discrimination that occurred to themselves and to other women. Specifically, they were asked to indicate on 7-point Likert scales (1 = not at all; 7 = very much) the extent to which they and other women had experienced gender discrimination. Demonstrating that mood was used as information, as shown in Figure 4, results showed that when an external attribution for induced mood was not provided, women in negative moods were more likely to report that they and other women have experienced discrimination than were women in positive moods. When an external attribution for the mood state was available, however, mood had no significant effect on judgements. Maintaining positive self-regard. The outcomes of all three stages in our framework—but perhaps most importantly Stage 2—are likely to be influenced by the general goal of maintaining a positive psychological state. The research programmes of Major and her colleagues (Crocker & Major, 1989; Major et al., 2002; Major et al., this volume) and of Branscombe and her colleagues (e.g., Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999; Jetten, Branscombe, Schmitt, & Spears, 2001; Kobrynowicz & Branscombe, 1997; Schmitt & Branscombe, 2002) have both directly addressed this issue, and the important variables in this regard are summarised by Major et al. (2002). 296 STANGOR ET AL. Attributions to Discrimination Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 Positive Mood Negative Mood 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 No Attribution External Attribution Figure 4. Attributions to discrimination as a function of mood state and opportunity for external attribution. From Sechrist et al. (2002). In general, both Major and her colleagues as well as Branscombe and her colleagues agree with our general expectation that the outcomes of negative events for members of stigmatised groups are often ambiguous, in the sense that they may or may not be due to discrimination, and that the perceiver must attempt to disambiguate the causes of these events. Crocker and Major (1989) defined this state—attributional ambiguity—as an uncertainty about whether the outcomes one receives are indicative of one’s personal deservingness or of social prejudices that others have against one’s social group. According to this model, attributions to discrimination occur at both the level of cognitive appraisals, and at the level of coping processes. Prior research has suggested that people may underestimate the extent to which they have personally experienced discrimination, for instance, in comparison to their perceptions of the amount of discrimination that occurs to their social group as a whole (Taylor, Wright, Moghaddam, & Lalonde, 1990). This ‘‘personal-group discrepancy’’ is robust, and has been demonstrated among various stigmatised as well as non-stigmatised groups in a wide variety of laboratory and naturally occurring situations Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 297 (Kobrynowicz & Branscombe, 1997; Moghaddam, Stolkin, & Hutcheson, 1997; Taylor, Wright, & Porter, 1994). Although there are a number of explanations for this individual – group discrepancy in perceiving discrimination, one possibility is that people deny that they personally experience discrimination to maintain a sense of control over their outcomes. Although this seems possible, our research into the role of perceived control (Sechrist, Swim, & Stangor, 2003) was based on the assumption that making attributions to discrimination (rather than to one’s lack of ability) may also allow individuals to reassert personal control over a situation. People have a fundamental need to maintain control, and will attempt to reassert this perception if they are deprived of it (Burger, 1992). We predicted that individuals with high needs for personal control, who were therefore in need of maintaining or restoring a positive self-image, would be more likely to interpret negative events as due to discrimination. Confirming these predictions, we found that women who were high in dispositional need for control—as assessed using Burger and Cooper’s (1979) Desire for Control Scale—were more likely than those low in need for control to conclude that negative feedback about one’s own performance on a task was a result of discrimination, rather than ability. Similarly, in a second study, we found that this was also true for women who were placed into a state of control deprivation (using a procedure developed by Pittman & D’Agostino, 1989). Moreover mediational analyses in this experiment showed that making the attribution to discrimination subsequently increased women’s level of perceived control. Although the results of these studies are not entirely consistent with other research suggesting that people may deny discrimination to maintain personal control over outcomes, they are nevertheless consistent with the overall notion that people may either enhance or deny discrimination in order to protect their self-image. The conditions under which needs for control lead people to over-, versus under-estimate the extent to which behaviours reflect discrimination still need to be determined. Perceiving a ‘‘just world’’. Still another potential determinant of perceptions of discrimination is that people are motivated to maintain perceptions that the world is just—that is, that individuals deserve the outcomes that occur to them. As a result, people show a pervasive tendency to justify existing status hierarchies and outcome distributions, even when those hierarchies and distributions are disadvantageous to themselves or to their group (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Kleugel & Smith, 1986; Major, 1994; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Because discrimination is, by definition, unfair to the target of the behaviour, members of disadvantaged groups may be motivated to avoid blaming their negative outcomes on prejudice and discrimination, even when such explanations are likely or even good 298 STANGOR ET AL. accounts for their treatment (Crosby, 1984; Olson & Hafer, 2001). Indeed, it has long been argued that social inequality persists because members of lowstatus groups are victims of false consciousness—that is, they fail to recognise the illegitimacy of the status system and of their own disadvantaged position within it (Jost, 1995). Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 The relationship between Stage 1 and Stage 2 processing Although Stage 1 and Stage 2 processing are hypothesised to be distinct cognitive stages, they are nevertheless closely linked. For one thing, if a person does not ask whether a situation is discriminatory or a person is prejudiced (Stage 1), she or he will never come to the conclusion that there is discrimination or a person is prejudiced (Stage 2). Moreover, the outcomes of Stage 1 and Stage 2 may both be related to similar individual-difference variables. People who are more chronically accessible for discrimination (Stage 1) are probably also likely to process information in a way that leads them to conclude that an event is discriminatory or a person is prejudiced (Stage 2). For instance, racial identity is associated with perceiving discrimination to be more prevalent—indicating that this construct is likely to be more accessible to these individuals—and is also associated with being more likely to identify specific incidents as racist (Operario & Fiske, 2001). Other variables, such as stigma consciousness, race-based rejection sensitivity, or cultural mistrust, may also increase both Stage 1 and Stage 2 processing (Pinel, 2002, Mendoza et al., 2002: Terrell & Terrell, 1981). On the other hand, discrepancies between Stage 1 and Stage 2 may be important for accounting for sources of variations in assessments of particular incidents as well as the prevalence of discrimination. For instance, in some cases, constructs may be equally accessible across individuals. This may be why several individual differences, such as racial identity, endorsement of sexist beliefs, and reporting that one actively confronts sexism, were weakly related or unrelated to number of everyday discrimination reported in diary studies (Swim et al., 2001; Swim et al., 2003b). Participating in the diary study may have made discrimination more equally accessible across individuals. This suggests that some individual differences may be principally related to perceptions of the prevalence of discrimination due to differences in the accessibility of the construct more so than difference in the interpretation of the incidents. On the other hand, other individual differences may be more strongly associated with differences in interpretation of incidents rather than accessibility. For instance, in diary studies, women report more incidents of everyday sexism directed at women than do men (Swim et al., 2001). Given that both were attending to such incidents, one explanation for the gender difference may be their PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 299 interpretation of the incidents. Women are more likely to perceive behaviours and comments as being offensive than men and this accounts for differences in labelling the behaviours as sexist (Swim et al., 2003c). Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 Summary In summary, Stage 2 processing involves individual and contextual variation in the tendency to interpret behaviours as discrimination. This variability may be the result of situations that alter the capacity to process information, differences in the tendency to weigh different causal variables when interpreting behaviours, and whether one’s mood is used as information when making attributions. Individuals may also be more or less likely to construe events as discrimination in order to maintain a positive sense of self (for instance, to maintain or regain personal control) or a sense that they live in a just world. Thus different types of information are differentially used by different people for different reasons, and the result of this processing may either validate or invalidate initial suspicions that arise from the activation discrimination or prejudice as a possible interpretation of an incident. In general, variability in Stage 2 processing suggests that different people (for instance, perpetrators, victims, and observers) may come to different conclusions about an event based on the information they have available and their interpretations of it. It is also possible (although we have not yet tested this) that how relevant others publicly interpret potentially discriminatory events may also influence the individual’s own interpretations. Individuals construe social reality in part on the basis of the perceptions of relevant others’ beliefs, and these processes may be particularly important in coming to conclusions about the experience of discrimination. Regardless of their causes, these differences in interpretation may play an important role in perpetuating intergroup misunderstandings. As shown in Figure 2, if the outcome of Stage 2 processing is a conclusion that an event was not the result of discrimination, the initial event may nevertheless influence individual outcomes. Indeed, continually perceiving discrimination, but then convincing oneself that it is not, may have substantial psychological costs. On the other hand, if the outcome of Stage 2 processing is an affirmation of the initial suspicion, and if there is an opportunity for public expression of this belief, then the individual proceeds to Stage 3. Stage 3: Overt reporting and confronting Once an individual has initially asked whether an event was due to discrimination (Stage 1), and subsequently determined that the event really was due to discrimination and not some other factor (Stage 2), they may be 300 STANGOR ET AL. faced with a decision about whether to overtly announce the perceived discrimination, by reporting it publicly or confronting it (Stage 3). These decisions are influenced in large part by a target’s goals in the interaction (Hyers, 2003). One particularly important goal is a concern to portray a positive impression to others (cf. Noel, Wann, & Branscombe, 1995; Postmes, Branscombe, Spears & Young, 1999). Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 The costs and benefits of publicly reporting discrimination Kaiser and Miller (2001) proposed that self-presentation (and particularly the desire to be liked by others) is a motivation for stigmatised individuals to avoid making attributions to discrimination in public. In their research, participants (predominantly white males) read about an African-American student who had received a negative evaluation on a test in a context in which discrimination was either a likely or an unlikely cause. The participants were then presented with a packet containing a survey that had supposedly been filled out by the student, and which concerned his responses to his evaluation. Results showed that the stigmatised student was rated less favourably and perceived as a ‘‘complainer’’ to a greater degree when the student attributed his poor performance to discrimination rather than to ability and effort. Furthermore, this was true regardless of the probability that discrimination was a valid cause of the performance. This tendency to dislike people who complain about discrimination is not limited to African Americans; Dodd, Giuliano, Boutell, and Moran (2001) reported that men liked a woman less if she confronted blatant sexism than if she did not confront it. One limitation of this prior research is that it focused primarily on the costs of claiming discrimination. But publicly announcing one’s opinion that an incident is discriminatory can also have social benefits. Recent research from our lab (Stangor, Van Allen, & Swim, 2003) confirms some of these benefits of confronting. We replicated the Kaiser and Miller study, using the same trait ratings that they had used. However, when we factored the items we found that they represented three variables—perceived likeability, perceived competence, as well as the tendency to complain. The first two factors are remarkably consistent with Fiske’s recent conceptualisation of stereotypes (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002; Fiske, Xu, Cuddy, & Glick, 1999) as relating to warmth and competence, and validate the distinction between them in a different context. Replicating Kaiser and Miller (2001), we found that claiming that a negative outcome was due to discrimination, rather than ability, significantly decreased the perceived liking (warmth) of the target, and also made them seem like a ‘‘complainer’’. However, claiming discrimination rather than ability also had a benefit—it significantly Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 301 increased the target’s perceived competence. Furthermore, and suggesting that the tendency to see these costs and benefits was quite general, these patterns held up for both older adults as well as college students, and for both Black and White participants judging both Black and White targets. We also found similar findings for the perception of individuals who claim gender discrimination (both men and women judging both male and female targets). A second potential advantage of publicly claiming discrimination is that it may increase the likelihood that others become aware of the possibility that events are caused by discrimination. Indeed, Stangor et al. (2003) found that when targets were said to have claimed discrimination, the observers of the event were themselves more likely to label the event as discrimination. Hyers (2003) found that women reported confronting both because they felt that they would appear weak if they did not and because they felt that confronting might educate others. Although confronting, especially by those who are the direct target of prejudice, may not actually end up changing perpetrator beliefs (Czopp & Monteith, 2003), other research indicates that confronting can have other benefits such as altering bystanders’ perceptions of events or changing social norms as to what is considered appropriate behaviour (Blanchard, Crandall, Brigham, & Vaughn, 1994; Lalonde & Cameron, 1994). Discrepancies between Stage 2 and Stage 3 processing The prior research shows that there are clear costs associated with publicly reporting and confronting discrimination, and this suggests that what one perceives at a private level (i.e., the outcome of Stage 2 processing) may not match what one reports publicly (the outcome of Stage 3 processing). This discrepancy may be important in understanding how people perceive and respond to discrimination. In the following section, we report studies from our lab that have explicitly assessed the discrepancies between Stage 2 and Stage 3 processing. Differences in stigmatised and non-stigmatised group members’ attributions to discrimination. The results of recent research by Stangor, Swim, Van Allen, and Sechrist (2001) suggest that individuals alter their public behaviours based on the potential self-presentation costs of claiming discrimination, and that self-presentation plays a more important role in whether or not stigmatised group members report discrimination than in whether or not non-stigmatised group members report discrimination. In these studies we examined participants’ attributions to discrimination after they received negative feedback on a creativity test in public and private settings. The public condition consisted of two participants who were told 302 STANGOR ET AL. Female Participants Sexism Ability Attributions Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 5 4 3 2 1 0 Private Public Same Sex Public Opposite Sex Social Context Figure 5. Female participants’ attributions to ability and sexism as a function of social context. From Stangor et al. (2001). that their judgements about the causes of their failure would be reported aloud. In the private condition, participants (who were either alone or in the presence of another participant) were told that all of their responses would remain private and confidential. As shown in Figure 5, we found that members of stigmatised groups (in this case women) were more likely to report that a failing grade assigned by an opposite-category evaluator (a man) was caused by discrimination, rather than by lack of ability or effort, when judgements were made privately, or when they were made in front of another woman. However, we also found that women were significantly more likely to make ability (rather than discrimination) attributions when they expected to report these responses in the presence of a male student. Male participants, however, were not influenced by the social context. We also found that Blacks were unwilling to report discrimination in front of Whites, although they were quite willing to do so in private and to another Black participant. Again, White participants were not influenced by the social context. Thus, as might be expected given a history of experiencing the negative outcomes associated with claiming discrimination, stigmatised individuals seem particularly aware of the social PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 303 Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 costs involved in reporting discrimination to non-stigmatised individuals, whereas non-stigmatised group members do not seem to be so concerned. These results are also consistent with the possibility that minimisation is due in part to a desire to avoid negative social consequences from higher-status group members. As Major et al. (2002) put it, ‘‘Members of low status groups may fear retaliation (Swim & Hyers, 1999) or being labeled a ‘complainer’ (Kaiser & Miller, 2001) by members of high status groups but may not have such fears with respect to members of their own group.’’ Attributing discrimination to the self versus another. Additional research from our lab suggests that self-presentation concerns are particularly salient when they involve reports about one’s own experiences with discrimination in comparison to when they involve the experiences of another in-group member. Sechrist, Swim, and Stangor (2003) gave women the opportunity to make an attribution to ability or to discrimination for negative feedback that had occurred either to the self or to another, similar, woman; again these attributions were made either in public or in private. We found that women were equally likely to make attributions to discrimination in public as in private when the negative feedback was directed at another woman. However, when the negative feedback was directed at the self, women were less likely to claim that their outcomes were due to discrimination in public than in private. These results suggest that although individuals may be aware that claiming one has been the victim of discrimination will be seen as complaining, reporting discrimination that has been directed against another person could, in contrast, be seen as a way of supporting them. Confronting sexism. The previous studies have focused on the conditions that influence stigmatised individuals’ willingness to make an attribution to discrimination. The willingness to make such a public attribution can be important in terms of one’s willingness to confront sexism. For instance, women who have a tendency to present a different public than private self due to pressure to conform to traditional gender roles are more likely to report having self-silenced to incidents that they report were likely to be sexist (Swim et al., 2003e). Laboratory studies have explicitly examined public reporting in the form of confronting sexism. Swim and Hyers (1999) observed women’s willingness to confront sexist comments made by men in a group setting. Consistent with the findings reported above, they found that women’s private thoughts about confronting were unrelated to their public thoughts. Moreover, when the situation these women faced was described to another group of women, this second group of women overestimated 304 STANGOR ET AL. 50 Solo status Other women present 45 40 Percent confronting Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 First comment Second comment Third comment Figure 6. Percent of women who confronted as a function of the presence of other women in the group. From Swim and Hyers (1999). the likelihood that they would publicly confront the man who made the sexist comment. The results from Swim and Hyers (1999) also point to specific social conditions that can influence women’s willingness to publicly confront sexism. Specifically, we found that women were initially more willing to confront sexism when they were the only women present than if other women were present in the group setting. After they observed the same man making additional sexist comments, however, there was no difference in the context in terms of their willingness to confront (see Figure 6). This suggests that women are looking to other women to decide how to respond and that diffusion of responsibility, rather than, for instance, anticipating social support, directed their behaviour. Summary. Existing research clearly demonstrates that even though people may in some cases view discrimination when asked to report anonymously Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 PERCEIVING DISCRIMINATION 305 and privately, they may nevertheless be unwilling to publicly express that they have been targets or to confront perpetrators. These discrepancies may help us understand variations in people’s reports about their own and others’ experiences with discrimination, and may help explain why individuals frequently do not report or confront the discrimination that occurs to them. If individuals are not reporting discrimination due to perceived social costs, this may create a type of pluralistic ignorance in which others may erroneously infer that they are not experiencing it. However, although existing research has primarily revealed variables that demonstrate the potential costs of reporting discrimination, there are also potential benefits that accrue when one does so. These include educating others about the possibility that discrimination is occurring and appearing competent to others. CONCLUSIONS Our research programme, as well as those of others (see Major et al., 2002; Major et al., this volume; Schmitt & Branscombe, 2002) is focusing on the extent to which members of stigmatised social groups perceive and/or misperceive the discrimination directed at them. The research is based on the assumption that members of stigmatised groups may suffer from discrimination both as a result of its direct negative effects, as well as because of their beliefs that they are, or are not, victims. Thus the stigmatised may hold stereotypes about the attitudes and expected motives of more powerful group members, and these stereotypes may be stronger for some individuals than others, and may or may not be contextually activated. Like all stereotypes, the expectations that the stigmatised hold about those with higher status may be in some senses accurate and in other senses inaccurate. And yet because they are overgeneralised they may be harmful to creating positive intergroup encounters. Indeed, the direct effects of prejudice and discrimination on the stigmatised may reflect only the tip of the causal iceberg. As in virtually every domain studied by social psychologists, perceptions may turn out to be as or more important than reality. Although individuals may either over- or under-estimate the occurrence of discrimination directed at them, taken together our results seem more consistent with other findings indicating that individuals are often unlikely to perceive and report discrimination that occurs to them personally (Crosby et al., 1986; Magley, Hulin, Fitzgerald, & DeNardo, 1999). Furthermore, this minimisation can occur at different points in the information-processing cycle—because individuals do not initially notice that an incident may be discriminatory, because they do not interpret the event as discrimination, or as a result of anticipated costs to publicly reporting or confronting it. Downloaded by [71.58.90.112] at 05:24 02 May 2014 306 STANGOR ET AL. On a practical level, there are both costs and benefits to underestimating the occurrence of discrimination (Feldman Barrett & Swim, 1998). On the positive side, individuals who are unaware of discrimination may be able to avoid the costs of becoming hostile and angry towards perpetrators, and they will be immune from the negative indirect outcomes of stereotyping, such as stereotype threat. Furthermore, they will avoid the potential costs associated with publicly reporting discrimination. However, if individuals from stigmatised groups underestimate that events that occur to them are discriminatory, they may be unprepared to cope with or respond to true discrimination when it occurs. And, at a social level, when large groups of individuals are unaware of the existence of prejudice, this may result in an unwillingness or inability to challenge the system (Jost & Banaji, 1994). Because we are in a relatively early stage of the testing of our proposed framework, there are many issues that we have not yet addressed. One issue is that our stage approach predicts that it is not only the outcome of different types of processing that is important, but that dissociations between the stages can also influence psychological responses to discrimination. An interesting research hypothesis, which has been proposed both by us and also by Miller and Kaiser (2001) is that discrepancies between Stage 1 and Stage 2 processing may have important influence on psychological health such that, if individuals do not initially become suspicious about discrimination, this will protect them psychologically. However initially noticing discrimination, but then subsequently denying or reinterpreting events as due to other causes, may produce negative outcomes. Similarly, a dissociation between Stage 2 and Stage 3 might occur such that perceiving discrimination at a private level, but then denying or failing to confront it publicly, could be psychologically costly if it violates a person’s need to be true to oneself. 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