Yes we can!: prejudice reduction through seeing (inequality) and believing (in social change).

We investigated the effect of differential perceived efficacy to reduce racial inequality (in the context of increased awareness of illegitimate in-group advantages) on White Americans' intergroup attitudes and antidiscrimination behavior. White American university students read a passage describing the underrepresentation of African Americans in their university's faculty and then wrote letters to the university administration in support of appointing more African Americans to the faculty. We experimentally varied feedback concerning efficacy to change institutional racism. Before writing their letters, participants were told that there was a low, moderate, or high chance that their efforts would be effective. Later in the experiment, participants' perceived efficacy to influence their university system was measured. Intergroup attitudes improved and antidiscrimination actions increased among participants with higher perceived efficacy in comparison with participants with low perceived efficacy. Collective guilt partially mediated the effects of efficacy beliefs on antidiscrimination actions and fully mediated the effects of efficacy beliefs on intergroup attitudes.

Epilepsy stigma and stigma by association in the workplace.

In the first experimental study of epilepsy-based discrimination in the workplace, we examined the influence of stigmatization on the workplace outcomes of hypothetical employees who were associated with epilepsy, but who did not have epilepsy themselves (stigma by association). Participants (40 women, 16 men), acting as employers, evaluated one of six randomly assigned employee work portfolios that were identical except that the employee was either male or female and had taken leave during the past year to care for a child with either epilepsy or asthma, or for whom no leave was mentioned. They then evaluated the employee and made recommendations concerning the employee's workplace rewards (promotion, raise) and penalties (job termination). Work quality evaluation was similar across conditions. However, parents of a child with epilepsy received fewer workplace rewards and greater workplace penalties than did employees in the other conditions. Implications for mental health and antibias interventions are discussed.

The effect of attitude toward women on the relative individuation of women and men is mediated by perceived gender subgroups.

The present study investigated whether a differential number of perceived subgroups for men and women mediated the previous finding that men and women with more traditional attitudes concerning women's roles individuate men more than women, whereas individuals with less traditional attitudes better individuate women (Stewart, Vassar, Sanchez, & David, 2000). Participants were asked to recall traits of 2 male and 2 female targets described to them. Comparison of memory errors for male vs female targets indicated relative individuation of men and women. Participants also generated subgroups of men and women and indicated their familiarity with these groups. As predicted, relative number of subgroups but not differential familiarity mediated the relationship between attitudes and relative individuation of men and women. More complex representations of women are proposed to facilitate organization of information about new members of this group.

Perspective and prejudice: antecedents and mediating mechanisms.

The present work investigated mechanisms by which Whites' prejudice toward Blacks can be reduced (Study 1) and explored how creating a common ingroup identity can reduce prejudice by promoting these processes (Study 2). In Study 1, White participants who viewed a videotape depicting examples of racial discrimination and who imagined the victim's feelings showed greater decreases in prejudice toward Blacks than did those in the objective and no instruction conditions. Among the potential mediating affective and cognitive variables examined, reductions in prejudice were mediated primarily by feelings associated with perceived injustice. In Study 2, an intervention designed to increase perceptions of a common group identity before viewing the videotape, reading that a terrorist threat was directed at all Americans versus directed just at White Americans, also reduced prejudice toward Blacks through increases in feelings of injustice.