The Policy Implications of Feeling Relatively Low Versus High Status Within a Privileged Group

Research suggests that White Americans oppose welfare due to between-group processes: Many White Americans envision welfare recipients to be lazy, undeserving, and Black, and these perceptions predict reduced welfare support. In the present work, we consider the role of within-group processes that r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. General 2021-11, Vol.150 (11), p.2346-2361
Main Authors: Cooley, Erin, Brown-Iannuzzi, Jazmin L., Lei, Ryan F., Cipolli, William, Philbrook, Lauren E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Attitudes
Blacks
Economic Inequality
Emotions
Female
Group Dynamics
Human
Humans
Male
Ownership
Policy
Policy Making
Racial and Ethnic Groups
Racial Groups
Racial Privilege
Social support
Stereotyped Attitudes
Stereotypes
Test Construction
Welfare
Whites
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Summary:Research suggests that White Americans oppose welfare due to between-group processes: Many White Americans envision welfare recipients to be lazy, undeserving, and Black, and these perceptions predict reduced welfare support. In the present work, we consider the role of within-group processes that result from complementary beliefs that White people, as a group, are wealthy. Using a nationally representative sample of White and Black Americans (Study 1) and two large samples of White Americans (Study 2 and Study 3; N = 2,000), we find that many White Americans feel relatively lower status than their racial group. Furthermore, these perceived within-group status disparities are associated with reduced stereotyping of welfare recipients as lazy, which mediates greater policy support. Finally, we demonstrate that leading White Americans to take ownership of their racial privilege can increase perceptions of within-group status. And these shifts in within-group status have downstream consequences for attitudes toward welfare recipients and policies (replicating our previous two studies). We conclude that consideration of both between-group and within-group processes may provide a fuller understanding of how group-level privilege shapes White Americans' support (or lack thereof) for hierarchy-attenuating policy.
ISSN:0096-3445
1939-2222
DOI:10.1037/xge0001051