When and Why Antiegalitarianism Affects Resistance to Supporting Black-Owned Businesses.

Understanding how initiatives to support Black-owned businesses are received, and why, has important social and economic implications. To address this, we designed three experiments to investigate the role of antiegalitarian versus egalitarian ideologies among White American adults. In Study 1 (N = 199), antiegalitarianism (vs. egalitarianism) predicted viewing initiatives supporting a Black-owned business as less fair, but only when the business was competing with other (presumably White-owned) businesses. In Study 2 (N = 801), antiegalitarianism predicted applying survival-of-the-fittest market beliefs, particularly to Black-owned businesses. Antiegalitarianism also predicted viewing initiatives supporting Black-owned businesses as less fair than initiatives that targeted other (presumably White-owned) businesses, especially for tangible (vs. symbolic) support that directly impacts the success of a business. In Study 3 (N = 590), antiegalitarianism predicted rejecting a program investing in Black-owned businesses. These insights demonstrate how antiegalitarian ideology can have the effect of maintaining race-based inequality, hindering programs designed to reduce that inequality.

Contemporary College Students' Reflections of their High School Peer Crowds.

High school peer crowds are fundamental components of adolescent development with influences on short-and long-term life trajectories. This study provides the perspectives of contemporary college students regarding their recent high school social landscapes, contributing to current research and theory on the social contexts of high school. This study also highlights the experiences of college-bound students who represent a growing segment of the adolescent population. 61 undergraduates attending universities in two states participated in 10 focus groups to reflect on their experiences with high school peer crowds during the late 2010s. Similar to seminal research on peer crowds, we examined crowds and individuals along several focal domains: popularity, extracurricular involvement, academic orientation, fringe media, illicit risk taking, and race-ethnicity. We find that names and characteristics of crowds reflect the current demographic and cultural moment (i.e., growing importance of having a college education, racial-ethnic diversity) and identify peer crowds that appear to be particularly salient for college-bound youth. Overall, this study illuminates how the retrospective accounts of college-bound students offer insight into high school social hierarchies during a time of rapid social change.