Reacting to Impending Discrimination: Compensation for Prejudice and Attributions to Discrimination

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This experiment tested the hypothesis that stigmatized people attempt to compensate for or overcome the effects of prejudice on social interactions. In an adaptation of Ruggiero and Taylor’s minimization of discrimination design, the authors informed 134 women either prior to or after completing a task that there was some chance that a prejudiced man would evaluate them. The women who were forewarned about prejudice compensated for this threat by distancing themselves from traditional feminine stereotypes relative to the women who learned about prejudice only after the experimental task was completed. However, the overall impression created by the women who were forewarned about prejudice suffered in this process. In addition, the authors did not replicate the minimization of discrimination finding. Regardless of when the women learned about prejudice, those who faced certain and possible prejudice were equally likely to attribute failing feedback to discrimination.

This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit: