The Dark Side of Safety: A Call for a More Thorough Consideration of Racism and Collective Power Motivations in the Social Psychology of Firearms.

This paper situates current social psychological research on the symbolic use of firearms (e.g., as a source of personal safety) in broader historical context to motivate a more thorough consideration of collective power motives. Historically, firearms have been used to dominate racial outgroup members (e.g., White Americans use of firearms and firearm laws to dispossess indigenous people of land or control free and enslaved Black people) or, at times, attempt to resist group-based oppression (e.g., Black Americans use of firearms to struggle against White Jim Crow terrorism). Given most gun owners report self-protection as their primary reason for firearm ownership and yet anti-Black attitudes are still a consistently important predictor of firearm ownership among dominant group members (e.g., White Americans), this paper examines how guns may function as a perceived source of personal safety and collective power. I center the persistent role of White supremacy and anti-Blackness in original U.S. firearm psychology and policy to illuminate the interrelatedness of personal safety and collective power perceptions, and how perceived threats to in-group power may motivate the use of guns and policies that selectively regulate gun access to mitigate associated safety concerns. Seeking to nudge social psychology to more thoroughly examine firearms' potential function as a symbolic source of collective power, I end by discussing how considering collective power can help us better understand how historically dominant and historically marginalized groups view firearms today while also illuminating some barriers to the pursuit of gun safety for all.

We've been here before: Reactions to the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests for justice.

Although experiences with police vary widely by race in the United States, many Americans expressed negative reactions to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020, which led to racially diverse protests for Floyd's justice. OBJECTIVE: This study assessed differences in Black and White Americans' reactions to the murder of George Floyd and the presence of White Americans at the subsequent protests for justice. METHOD: Black and White Americans (N = 290) took part in an online study in which they responded to questions regarding their reactions to the murder of George Floyd, the subsequent protests for justice, and critical knowledge (e.g., previous experiences with police and broad knowledge of Black history). RESULTS: Results of a preregistered study showed that Black (relative to White) Americans were more surprised by the extent of White participation in protests for justice. Also, Black Americans were more alarmed (i.e., emotionally jarred) by Floyd's murder. These differences in reactions were explained by Black (relative to White) Americans having more negative experiences with police brutality, both personally and among close others. CONCLUSION: This suggests that reactions to police brutality are experientially rooted, joining long-standing calls to center the lived experiences of Black Americans in psychological research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

When an irresistible prejudice meets immovable politics: Black legal gun ownership undermines racially resentful White Americans' gun rights advocacy.

Historical evidence suggests that White Americans' support for gun rights (i.e., opposition to gun control) is challenged by Black Americans exercising their legal rights to guns (e.g., The Black Panther Party and the Mulford Act of 1967). Here, we examined two empirical questions. First, we tested whether White Americans implicitly racialize gun rights as "White." In a preregistered study employing a novel IAT, racially resentful White Americans indirectly associated gun rights with White (and not Black) people. Moreover, this association was not primarily based in partisanship. Racial resentment overwhelmed the effect of party identification in explaining this association (Study 1). Given racial resentment typically predicts stronger support for gun rights (Filindra & Kaplan, 2015; O'Brien et al., 2013), we next examined whether Black legal gun ownership undermines gun rights support among racially resentful White Americans across two studies (total N = 773), including a nationally representative sample of White partisans. In both studies, racially resentful White Americans expressed less support for a gun right (i.e., concealed-carry) when informed that Black (vs. White) Americans showed greater utilization of the gun right (Studies 2 and 3). Study 3 provided initial evidence suggesting that the observed reduced support is more closely linked to concerns about identity than security. Overall, these results support that Black legal gun ownership can reduce opposition to gun control among gun rights' most entrenched advocates. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

You Play a Sport, Right? A Persistent and Pernicious Intersectional Bias in Categorization of Students vs. Student-Athletes.

Black male students on college campuses report being frequently misperceived as student-athletes. Across three studies, we tested the role of perceivers' racial and gendered biases in categorization of Black and White students and student-athletes and the subsequent evaluative consequences. Participants viewed faces of actual Black and White male and female undergraduates who were either non-athlete students or student-athletes and made binary judgments about whether the undergraduate was a student or an athlete. We found an overall bias to judge Black male undergraduates to be student-athletes, driven by Black male students being more likely to be misperceived as student-athletes than White male students. Furthermore, male targets perceived to be student-athletes were rated lower on academic ability (Studies 2 and 3). In contrast, we found an overall bias to judge female undergraduates as students. Implications for how perceiver bias plays a dual role in negatively affecting academic climates for underrepresented groups are discussed.

Can I belong in school and sports?: The intersectional value of athletic identity in high school and across the college transition.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates whether being identified with both school and sports affords benefits for Black male and female students in high school and across the transition to college. Given gendered concerns about being academically identified and cultural associations of athletics with Black masculinity, being both academically and athletically identified is expected to play a larger role in the sociocultural and academic experiences of Black male students. METHOD: Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF), Study 1 (N = 1,011) employs a cross-sectional analysis of Wave 1 and Study 2 (N = 822) employs a longitudinal analysis of Waves 1-3 to test these hypotheses. RESULTS: Identifying with athletics in high school is found to afford sociocultural benefits for academically identified Black male, but not Black female, students in the short-term and longitudinally across the college transition. In high school, Black male students identified with both academics and athletics reported greater identification with other young Black men compared to those identified with academics only (Study 1). Longitudinally, identification with athletics in high school was positively associated with sociocultural adjustment in the first year of college (e.g., interdependent studying behaviors), explained through this increased identification with young Black men (Study 2). CONCLUSIONS: Athletics is found to serve as a culturally valued identity with important benefits for Black male students' experiences in secondary and postsecondary contexts. Although centered on athletics, these findings more broadly point to the importance of academically engaged Black students, across gender identities, being able to feel secure in their intersectional identities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Class advantages and disadvantages are not so Black and White: intersectionality impacts rank and selves.

At the intersection of race and class the consequences of being working-class or middle-class are not so Black and White. Rather, established and emerging research suggests that race/ethnicity and social class intersect to differentially afford benefits and burdens. For instance, racial/ethnic minorities often do not reap the social, psychological or economic benefits of higher social class; yet, in some key life domains (e.g. health and mortality) racial/ethnic minorities in the U.S. seem to be buffered from some burdens of lower social class. We integrate empirical evidence to suggest that such differential advantages and disadvantages along racial lines reflect that social class exists alongside, rather than separate from, race/ethnicity as two distinct yet intersecting sources of rank and in turn selves.