Pattern deviancy aversion predicts prejudice via a dislike of statistical minorities.

Abstract

Research has documented an overlap between people’s aversion toward nonsocial pattern deviancy (e.g., a row of triangles with 1 triangle out of line) and their social prejudice. It is unknown which processes underlie this association, however, and whether this link is causal. We propose that pattern deviancy aversion may contribute to prejudice by heightening people’s dislike of statistical minorities. Infrequent people in a population are pattern deviant in that they disrupt the statistical regularities of how people tend to look, think, and act in society, and this deviancy should incite others’ prejudice. Nine studies (N = 1,821) supported this mediation. In Studies 1.1 and 1.2, adults’ and young children’s nonsocial pattern deviancy aversion related to disliking novel statistical minorities, and this dislike predicted prejudice against Black people. Studies 1.3 and 1.4 observed this mediation when experimentally manipulating pattern deviancy aversion, although pattern deviancy aversion did not directly impact racial prejudice. Study-set 2 replicated the proposed mediation in terms of prejudice against other commonly stigmatized individuals (e.g., someone with a physical disability). Importantly, we also found pattern deviancy aversion to affect such prejudice. Study-set 3 provided additional support for the mediation model. Pattern deviancy aversion predicted prejudice dependent on group-size, for instance, greater racial prejudice in cases where Black people are the statistical minority, but decreased racial prejudice when Black people are the statistical majority. Taken together, these findings indicate that people’s aversion toward pattern deviancy motivates prejudice, and that this influence is partially driven by a dislike of statistical minorities.

Anxious attachment as an antecedent of people's aversion towards pattern deviancy

“…People's aversion towards the distortion of patterns is also exemplified by people's prejudice against those who break societal patterns. People's prejudice and discrimination is commonly directed towards those who break societal regularities, ranging from deviancy in terms of group-identity (e.g., minorities in the United States), to character trait deviancy (e.g., social-norm breakers), and to physical deviancy (e.g., the physically handicapped; Goffman, 1963;Gollwitzer, Marshall, Wang, & Bargh, 2017;Gollwitzer & Marshall, 2019). Additionally, individuals at the forefront of new cultural movements are often, at first, regarded with scorn and derision (e.g., Chesneau, 1874).…”

The role of status in the early emergence of pro‐White bias in rural Uganda

“…Although novelty is a possible explanation for our results, we did find race‐based status judgments to predict pro‐White bias, demonstrating that at least a portion of variation in the observed racial bias was predicted by status rather than by a novelty preference. Additionally, past research indicates that there is little reason to think that young children prefer societal outliers or minorities or consider such individuals higher in status (e.g., Gollwitzer et al., 2019). Even more so, Black children in Cameroon, where White individuals are likely as similarly novel as in Uganda, did not prefer to interact with White individuals (Qian et al., 2021).…”

Engaging White Parents to Address Their White Children’s Racial Biases in the Black-White Context

“…Corroborating findings from survey research, laboratory measures provide evidence that young children commonly express anti-Black biases. For example, by 4 to 5 years of age, most non-Black children in the U.S. favor White over Black people on social preference measures (Gollwitzer et al, 2020;Shutts et al, 2013), with racial biases being particularly robust amongst White children (Baron & Banaji, 2006;Dunham et al, 2013).…”