White ≠ Poor: Whites Distance, Derogate, and Deny Low-Status Ingroup Members

Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin
Jonathan W KunstmanJason C Deska

Abstract

Throughout society, White people of low socioeconomic status (SES) face prejudice, often from racial ingroup members. The present research tested the ingroup distancing effect, which predicts that Whites' negative reactions to low-SES ingroup members are motivated responses to perceived threats to their personal and group-level status. To cope with perceived status threats, White people psychologically and physically distance themselves from low-SES Whites. Four studies provide converging support for this theorizing. Among White participants, low-SES Whites elicited derogation, impaired racial categorization and memory, and inflated perceived personal status. White participants explicitly perceived low-SES Whites as greater status threats than low-SES Blacks, and these perceptions of threat predicted increased discomfort in anticipated social situations with low-SES White targets. Moreover, threatened status led Whites who strongly identified with their racial ingroup to physically distance themselves from a low-SES White partner. This research demonstrates that concerns with status motivate prejudice against ingroup members.

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Citations

Sep 24, 2019·Frontiers in Psychology·Qi WuPing Zhou
Dec 6, 2018·Journal of Research on Adolescence : the Official Journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence·Deborah J JonesApril Highlander
Mar 25, 2019·Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin·Bradley D MattanJasmin Cloutier
Sep 25, 2020·Royal Society Open Science·Bradley D Mattan, Jasmin Cloutier
Jul 11, 2018·Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities·Ganga S BeySharina D Person
Sep 1, 2017·Current Opinion in Psychology·Mesmin Destin, Régine Debrosse
Apr 27, 2021·Frontiers in Psychology·Gloria Jiménez-MoyaChristian Berger

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