The missing middle: Asian employees' experience of workplace discrimination and pro-black allyship.

Asian employees occupy an intermediate status in the U.S. racial hierarchy between White and Black employees. Given this intermediate position, it is unclear whether and how Asian employees' own racial experience at work will affect their willingness to take action against racism toward other groups. In the current research, we examine how Asian employees' experiences of racism impact their propensity to combat racism against Black coworkers. Across four studies including a qualitative survey (Pilot), a time-lagged quantitative survey (Study 1), a preregistered experiment (Study 2), and a conceptual replication experiment (Study 3), we find that Asian employees who experience more racial discrimination at work feel more similar to Black individuals, which is subsequently associated with greater allyship toward Black coworkers. We find that this relationship is heightened among Asian employees who have stronger zero-sum beliefs (Study 1). Importantly, we further find that processes that lead to allyship among Asian employees differ among White employees (Studies 2-3): In contrast to Asian employees, White employees who perceive more anti-in-group workplace discrimination feel less similar to Black individuals, which is associated with diminished pro-Black allyship. By examining the poorly understood racial experiences of Asian employees, and uncovering mechanisms that propel Asian employees to engage in intergroup allyship, we provide a more complete picture of racism in the workplace. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

What counts as discrimination? How principles of merit shape fairness of demographic decisions.

Demographic attributes (e.g., age, disability, race) frequently affect people's decisions. We provide a novel perspective as to why such discrimination persists: Meritocratic principles lead people to perceive some demographic attributes as fair to use, rather than as discriminatory. Specifically, we theorize that meritocracy requires that controllable and relevant inputs determine outcomes; as a result, perceived controllability and relevance affect the degree to which demographic attributes are perceived as fair to use. Moreover, we suggest perceived relevance outweighs controllability, such that even uncontrollable attributes can be perceived as fair criteria if perceived to be outcome relevant. In two qualitative studies, we probed how people think about demographic attributes used in selection (Studies 1a-b). We find that people refer to controllability and relevance dimensions to justify their perceptions. Further, people largely associate uncontrollable, irrelevant attributes with discrimination (race, sex), neglecting attributes they perceive as controllable and/or relevant (disability, caregiving status). Next, three surveys (Studies 2a-c) support our theorizing that perceived relevance impacts fairness perceptions more strongly than perceived controllability. In three experiments (Studies 3a-c), we provide causal evidence that relevance and controllability shape perceived fairness, which in turn affects selection behaviors, including seeking information regarding demographic attributes during hiring. Finally, Study 4 demonstrates downstream consequences: Perceived controllability, relevance, and use of demographic attributes together impact employees' psychological safety and job satisfaction. Overall, we find that principles of merit lead people to believe that even some legally protected demographic attributes are fair to use, allowing discrimination to persist. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Why benefiting from discrimination is less recognized as discrimination.

Discrimination continues to plague society, creating stark inequities between groups. While existing work has considered the role of prejudice in perpetuating discrimination, we draw on emerging research on privilege and inequity frames to offer an overlooked, complementary explanation: Objectively discriminatory decisions that are described as favoring, compared with disfavoring, are less likely to be recognized as discrimination. We further theorize this is because favoring decisions are perceived to be motivated by positive intentions. We find support for our hypotheses across eight studies. First, using both qualitative (Studies 1a-b) and experimental approaches (Studies 2-7), across a range of discrimination contexts including race, sex, nationality, and age, we find that inequity frames affect perceptions of discrimination. Further, we find that even human resource employees are less likely to recognize discrimination when described as favoring (Study 3), in turn affecting their reporting behaviors: They are less likely to report potentially discriminatory decisions for review. Next, sampling language from U.S. Supreme Court cases, we find that people support litigation less when discrimination uses a favoring frame, versus disfavoring frame (Study 4). Then, we find that this pattern is driven by inequity frames shaping perceived intentions, rather than perceived harm (Studies 5-6). Finally, we find some evidence that inequity frames regarding a discriminatory decision committed by an organization may affect candidates' job pursuit behaviors (Study 7). This work contributes to a nascent perspective that advantaging mechanisms are critical for creating group inequity: given individuals are less likely to recognize favoritism as discriminatory, favoritism may especially contribute to the persistence of inequity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Person Perception, Meet People Perception: Exploring the Social Vision of Groups.

Groups, teams, and collectives-people-are incredibly important to human behavior. People live in families, work in teams, and celebrate and mourn together in groups. Despite the huge variety of human group activity and its fundamental importance to human life, social-psychological research on person perception has overwhelmingly focused on its namesake, the person, rather than expanding to consider people perception. By looking to two unexpected partners, the vision sciences and organization behavior, we find emerging work that presents a path forward, building a foundation for understanding how people perceive other people. And yet this nascent field is missing critical insights that scholars of social vision might offer: specifically, for example, the chance to connect perception to behavior through the mediators of cognition and motivational processes. Here, we review emerging work across the vision and social sciences to extract core principles of people perception: efficiency, capacity, and complexity. We then consider complexity in more detail, focusing on how people perception modifies person-perception processes and enables the perception of group emergent properties as well as group dynamics. Finally, we use these principles to discuss findings and outline areas fruitful for future work. We hope that fellow scholars take up this people-perception call.

I ain't no fortunate one: On the motivated denial of class privilege.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 119(6) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2021-01144-001). In the article, in the Independent variables subsection of Experiment 6, the second paragraph is duplicated here in error. The correct location appears as the fourth paragraph of this subsection. All versions of this article have been corrected.] Invisibility makes privilege powerful. Especially when it remains unexposed, privilege perpetuates inequity by giving unearned advantages to certain groups over others. However, recent social movements (e.g., Occupy) attempt to expose class-based privilege, threatening its invisibility. Across 8 experiments, we show that beneficiaries of class privilege respond to such exposure by increasing their claims of personal hardships and hard work, to cover privilege in a veneer of meritocracy. Experiments 1a-c show that when people are provided evidence of their own class privilege, they claim to have suffered more personal life hardships. Experiment 2 suggests that these claims are driven in part by threats to self-regard. Experiment 3 finds that such self-defense is motivated specifically by a desire to attribute positive outcomes to the self (i.e., sense of personal merit). When given the chance to first bolster their sense of personal merit, those benefitting from privilege no longer claim hardships in response to evidence of privilege. Experiments 4 and 5 further suggest self-concerns are at play: only self-relevant privilege evokes defensive responses, and self-affirmation reduces hardship claims more than does system-affirmation. Finally, Experiment 6 suggests that people claim hardships because they believe these imply personal merit on their part. Preventing the privileged from claiming hardship leads them to claim increased effort in the workplace and to increase effort on a difficult task. Overall, results suggest that even when those benefitting from class privileges are confronted with evidence of their "invisible knapsack," ideologies of personal merit help them cover the privileges of class once again. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Access is not enough: Cultural mismatch persists to limit first-generation students' opportunities for achievement throughout college.

United States higher education prioritizes independence as the cultural ideal. As a result, first-generation students (neither parent has a four-year degree) often confront an initial cultural mismatch early on in college settings: they endorse relatively interdependent cultural norms that diverge from the independent cultural ideal. This initial cultural mismatch can lead first-generation students to perform less well academically compared with continuing-generation students (one or more parents have a four-year degree) early in college. Yet, what happens as first-generation students experience the university culture throughout their time in college? Using cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches, we find that initial cultural mismatch is associated with psychological and academic costs that persist until graduation. First, at college entry, we find social class differences in cultural norms: first-generation students endorse more interdependent cultural norms than their continuing-generation peers. Second, endorsing interdependence at college entry predicts reduced subjective sense of fit in college four years later. Third, lower subjective sense of fit predicts lower grade point average and subjective social status upon graduation. Together, these results suggest that initial cultural mismatch contributes to worse experiences and academic outcomes among first-generation students, and that these disparities persist even until graduation. Further, we find that social class differences in cultural norms remain stable throughout college: first-generation students continue to endorse more interdependence than do continuing-generation students. We suggest providing access is not sufficient to reduce social class inequity; colleges need to create more inclusive environments to ensure that students from diverse backgrounds can reap similar rewards. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Ease and control: the cognitive benefits of hierarchy.

This review identifies two cognitive benefits of social hierarchy that may contribute to hierarchy maintenance. First, research indicates that people pay attention to hierarchies automatically, early, and accurately. As a result, hierarchies feel easy to process, which increases liking and support of hierarchy. Second, through their clear, predictable structures and the opportunities they provide for personal agency, hierarchies help people satisfy their need for control, which may lead people to seek out and maintain hierarchy, especially if they currently hold a high rank or believe in social mobility. These cognitive benefits of ease and control may have effects on the performance of hierarchies and on people's willingness to change unfair structures.

Perceiving groups: The people perception of diversity and hierarchy.

The visual perception of individuals has received considerable attention (visual person perception), but little social psychological work has examined the processes underlying the visual perception of groups of people (visual people perception). Ensemble-coding is a visual mechanism that automatically extracts summary statistics (e.g., average size) of lower-level sets of stimuli (e.g., geometric figures), and also extends to the visual perception of groups of faces. Here, we consider whether ensemble-coding supports people perception, allowing individuals to form rapid, accurate impressions about groups of people. Across nine studies, we demonstrate that people visually extract high-level properties (e.g., diversity, hierarchy) that are unique to social groups, as opposed to individual persons. Observers rapidly and accurately perceived group diversity and hierarchy, or variance across race, gender, and dominance (Studies 1-3). Further, results persist when observers are given very short display times, backward pattern masks, color- and contrast-controlled stimuli, and absolute versus relative response options (Studies 4a-7b), suggesting robust effects supported specifically by ensemble-coding mechanisms. Together, we show that humans can rapidly and accurately perceive not only individual persons, but also emergent social information unique to groups of people. These people perception findings demonstrate the importance of visual processes for enabling people to perceive social groups and behave effectively in group-based social interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record

Social class culture cycles: how three gateway contexts shape selves and fuel inequality.

America's unprecedented levels of inequality have far-reaching negative consequences for society as a whole. Although differential access to resources contributes to inequality, the current review illuminates how ongoing participation in different social class contexts also gives rise to culture-specific selves and patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. We integrate a growing body of interdisciplinary research to reveal how social class culture cycles operate over the course of the lifespan and through critical gateway contexts, including homes, schools, and workplaces. We first document how each of these contexts socializes social class cultural differences. Then, we demonstrate how these gateway institutions, which could provide access to upward social mobility, are structured according to middle-class ways of being a self and thus can fuel and perpetuate inequality. We conclude with a discussion of intervention opportunities that can reduce inequality by taking into account the contextual responsiveness of the self.