Intersectionality theory allows us to examine how systems of power and oppression (e.g., racism, sexism) co-construct each other to create complex and unique forms of systemic harm and injustice. More particularly, intersectional invisibility provides a framework to understanding how Black women, who live at the intersection of racism and sexism, may be harmed when their unique experiences as Black women are not recognized. This study takes a stereotype content approach to explore how group prototypes result in Black women's intersectional invisibility. Employing a novel stereotypical attribute awareness task administered to more than 1,000 U.S. adults, we build on previous work regarding prototypes and intersectional invisibility. We also advance a differentiation hypothesis positing that the prototypical Black woman and Black man will be less distinct from each other than the prototypical White woman and White man. Respondents differentiated between White men and White women to a greater extent than they differentiated between Black men and Black women. Black women were also rated as being less similar to women in general than were White women. Using nonmetric multidimensional scaling techniques to visualize prototype similarity, we identify racial and gender dimensions in prototype similarity and depict how various group prototypes cluster along these dimensions. We conclude that demographic group prototypes lead to Black women being erased through masculinization and underdistinction from Black men and excluded through overdistinction from women in general. These findings help to explain Black women's simultaneous victimization by the criminal legal system and neglect from "single-axis" social justice movements.
What is the significance of this article for the general public?This study finds that demographic group prototypes underdifferentiate Black women from Black men and exclude them from women. This may explain why Black women face disproportionate negative contact with the legal system and why the feminism and antiracism movements often fail to address their concerns. Social justice movements should better advocate for Black women so as not to exacerbate the violence toward Black women that they are charged with combating.
The ability of social media users to express themselves online should be influential for opinion formation, including potential polarization. Still, little is known about how expression interacts with users’ psychological predispositions, especially for controversial topics. The potential for expression to relate to support for social media-based racial justice movements, which could also be affected by underlying feelings of racial resentment, is particularly interesting. We apply the Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model (DSMM) to the study of the relationship between social media expression and issue polarization regarding Black Lives Matter. In a survey of social media users conducted during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, we find that racial resentment moderates the relationship between social media expression and support for racial justice movements. Among low-resentment social media users, more frequent expression was associated with less support for Black Lives Matter. In addition, low- versus high-resentment users who expressed themselves on social media more frequently were more polarized in their support for All Lives Matter but less polarized in their support for Black Lives Matter. In line with the DSMM, our findings highlight that users’ psychological predispositions must be taken into account when determining how social media expression relates to issue polarization.
Due to ongoing concerns about adolescent interpersonal aggression and debates surrounding violent media, this study assesses the potential impacts of parental mediation and parenting style on mature video game play and fighting behaviors using a longitudinal, random‐digit‐dial survey of adolescents (N = 2722). By simultaneously considering fighting, M‐rated video game play, parental restrictions on media use, parenting style, and important covariates, we aim to provide further nuance to existing work on risk and protective factors for interpersonal aggression. Our results show that parental restriction has a significant, linear relationship with later fighting, whereby higher restrictions on a child's M‐rated video game play predict decreases in reported fighting behavior. Authoritative parenting, high in both warmth and supervisory attention, also relates to decreased levels of fighting compared to other styles. Parenting style also moderated the effects of restriction, such that restriction was not equally predictive of fighting behavior across all parenting styles. However, the association between restriction and fighting was similar for highly demanding parenting styles, suggesting that authoritative parenting is not inherently superior to authoritarian. The effects of restriction were significant despite controlling for multiple covariates. Parental restriction of media use may be an effective strategy for parents concerned about violent games. Given some limitations in our dataset, we call for continued study in this area.
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