Chronic frames of social inequality: How mainstream media frame race, gender, and wealth inequality.

How social inequality is described­as advantage or disadvantage­critically shapes individuals' responses to it [e.g., B. S. Lowery, R. M. Chow, J. R. Crosby, J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 45, 375­378, 2009]. As such, it is important to document how people, in fact, choose to describe inequality. In a corpus of 18,349 newspaper articles (study 1), in 764 hand-coded news media publications (study 2), and in a preregistered experiment of 566 lay participants (study 3), we document the presence of chronic frames of race, gender, and wealth inequality. Specifically, race and gender inequalities are more likely to be framed as subordinate groups' disadvantages than as dominant groups' advantages, and wealth inequality is more likely to be described with no frame (followed by dominant group advantage, then subordinate group disadvantage). Supplemental lexicon-based text analyses in studies 1 and 2, survey results in study 3, and a preregistered experiment (study 4; N = 578) provide evidence that the differences in chronic frames are related to the perceived legitimacy of the inequality, with race and gender inequalities perceived as less legitimate than wealth inequality. The presence of such chronic frames and their association with perceived legitimacy may be mechanisms underlying the systematic inattention to White individuals' and men's advantages, and the disadvantages of the working class.

The "Equal-Opportunity Jerk" Defense: Rudeness Can Obfuscate Gender Bias.

To address sexism, people must first recognize it. In this research, we identified a barrier that makes sexism hard to recognize: rudeness toward men. We found that observers judge a sexist perpetrator as less sexist if he is rude toward men. This occurs because rudeness toward men creates the illusion of gender blindness. We documented this phenomenon in five preregistered studies consisting of online adult participants and adult students from professional schools (total N = 4,663). These attributions are problematic because sexism and rudeness are not mutually exclusive. Men who hold sexist beliefs about women can be-and often are-rude toward other men. These attributions also discourage observers from holding perpetrators accountable for gender bias. Thus, rudeness toward men gives sexist perpetrators plausible deniability. It protects them and prevents the first perceptual step necessary to address sexism.

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).

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).

Words that hurt: Leaders' anti-Asian communication and employee outcomes.

With the outbreak of COVID-19, there have been growing reports of racial harassment targeting Asian Americans. We study one such manifestation of racial harassment that Asian employees may face in the workplace: Leaders' use of stigmatizing labels for COVID-19 such as the "Chinese Virus" and "Kung Flu." Integrating organizational justice theories with research on racial harassment in the workplace, we theorize that leaders' use of stigmatizing COVID-19 labels reduces employees' perceptions of interpersonal justice, which subsequently impact employees' emotional exhaustion and work engagement. We further theorize that while such effects will be stronger among Asian employees who experience both moral anger and reduced public collective self-esteem, that the effects will also be present among non-Asian employees who experience moral anger. Using one survey (Study 1) and one experiment (Study 2), we find support for our predictions. We find that leaders' use of stigmatizing language to depict COVID-19 leads to deleterious workplace experiences for employees, and especially for Asian employees. The current research thus deepens our understanding of the relatively understudied work experiences of Asian Americans and brings to light the underlying psychological mechanisms linking racial harassment and employee work outcomes for both targeted employees and employees not targeted. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Keeping Minorities Happy: Hierarchy Maintenance and Whites' Decreased Support for Highly Identified White Politicians.

We test the hypothesis that, to avoid provoking minorities, Whites will withhold their support for White political candidates who are highly identified with their race. In Study 1, we found that White Republicans were less supportive of White candidates the higher the perceived White identity of the candidate due to beliefs that such candidates would provoke racial minorities. In Study 2, we replicated this effect with a manipulation of candidates' White identity. Study 3 found that Whites reported less support for high-identity candidates when they were led to believe that the hierarchy was unstable rather than stable. Consistent with our hypothesis that those who have the most to lose are most likely to avoid provoking minorities, in Study 4, we found that Whites with high subjective socioeconomic status (SES) varied their support for provocative White candidates as a function of hierarchy stability, whereas those with low subjective SES did not.