Structurally Unjust: How Lay Beliefs about Racism Relate to Perceptions of and Responses to Racial Inequality in Criminal Justice

Rucker, Julian M.; Duker, Ajua; Richeson, Jennifer A.

doi:10.31234/osf.io/sjkeq

Cited by 24 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Yet, although Conflict Aware Whites tended to portray such discrimination in structural terms—often referring to ways in which the economic system is stacked against working people—Class Connected Whites were more likely to recall specific instances in which they were denigrated or treated unfairly by others. This difference echoes research on individual vs. structural conceptions of racism (e.g., O'Brien et al., ; Rucker et al., ). Interestingly, Working Class Patriots displayed a mix of structural and individualized interpretations of discrimination—with the common thread of placing Whites on the receiving end of bias.…”

Section: Distinguishing Features Of White Working‐class Identitiessupporting

confidence: 69%

“…Although not endorsing the existence of reverse racism that their Working‐class Patriot counterparts did, they nonetheless downplayed the severity of racial conflict. They essentially believe that racism exists, that it is wrong, but that it is not as significant a problem as some think it to be—perhaps because their conception of racism centered on individual bigotry rather than structural barriers that impede minority advancement (O'Brien et al., ; Rucker, Duker, & Richeson, ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research on the consequences of structural (as opposed to merely individualized) conceptions of intergroup relations (O'Brien et al., ) suggests one potential avenue in this regard. As described above, the primary difference between Conflict Aware and Class Connected Whites is the former's structural outlook, suggesting that progressivism can be fostered among Working‐class Connected Whites by encouraging them to adopt a more structural outlook on social class and their position within in the hierarchy (Rucker et al., ). Consequently, political strategists who regard working‐class Whites as solidly in the thrall of right‐wing populism may miss the potential for working‐class coalitions that cut across racial divides to emerge.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Class Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Immigration and Race Among Working‐Class Whites1

McDermott

Knowles

Richeson

2019

Anal Soc Iss & Public Policy

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As neighborhoods that were predominantly White become more racially and ethnically diverse, many Whites in those communities respond with feelings of threat and political shifts to the right. Trump's election in 2016 has often been attributed, at least in part, to such responses among members of the White working class. Building on this work, in the summer of 2017 (and thus after the election) we interviewed 77 working-class White residents of three majority-White cities from the Midwestern United States that had recently become more diverse due to an influx of Latino immigrants and/or an increase in native-born racial minorities. Respondents were asked about their class identity, perceptions of change in their communities, and their attitudes about immigration and racial minorities.

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Section: Distinguishing Features Of White Working‐class Identitiessupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Class Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Immigration and Race Among Working‐Class Whites1

McDermott

Knowles

Richeson

2019

Anal Soc Iss & Public Policy

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“…Decades of research in the social sciences suggest that misperceptions of the current state of racial inequality should cleave along group-status lines in society. Specifically, individuals higher in group-status characteristics (Berger & Ridgeway, 1986), particularly with respect to race and income, given their relevance to racial economic inequality, should be more likely to overestimate current racial economic equality than their lower-status counterparts (Bialik & Cilluffo, 2017; Rucker, Duker, & Richeson, 2019). And although these status characteristics are imbued with cultural meaning and shape basic psychological processes (Destin, Rheinschmidt-Same, & Richeson, 2017; Kraus, Piff, Mendoza-Denton, Rheinschmidt, & Keltner, 2012; Sen & Wasow, 2016; Stephens, Markus, & Fryberg, 2012), they are also fundamental to defining access to social spaces and resources (e.g., Massey & Denton, 1993; Richeson & Sommers, 2016; Ridgeway, 2014).…”

Section: Group Status Societal Structures and Misperceptions Of Racmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Misperception of Racial Economic Inequality

Kraus¹,

Onyeador²,

Daumeyer³

et al. 2019

Perspect Psychol Sci

179

168

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Racial economic inequality is a foundational feature of the United States, yet many Americans appear oblivious to it. In the present work we consider the psychology underlying this collective willful ignorance. Drawing on prior research and new evidence from a nationally representative sample of adults ( N = 1,008), we offer compelling evidence that Americans vastly underestimate racial economic inequality, especially the racial wealth gap. In particular, respondents thought that the Black–White wealth gap was smaller, by around 40 percentage points in 1963 and around 80 percentage points in 2016, than its actual size. We then consider the motivational, cognitive, and structural factors that are likely to contribute to these misperceptions and suggest directions for future research to test these ideas. Importantly, we highlight the implications of our collective ignorance of racial economic inequality and the challenge of creating greater accuracy in perceptions of these racial economic disparities, as well as outline the steps policymakers might take to create messages on this topic that effectively promote equity-enhancing policies. We close with an appeal to psychological science to at least consider, if not center, the racial patterning of these profound economic gaps.

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“…For instance, in U.S. contexts, zero-sum beliefs about race can lead Whites to perceive less bias against Blacks than against Whites (Norton & Sommers, 2011). Group-protective beliefs about the nature of racism (e.g., seeing racism as a structural problem or not) can likewise motivate people to disregard or even distort cues about inequality (Rucker, Duker, & Richeson, 2019;Onyeador et al, 2020; see also Unzueta & Lowery, 2008).…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inequality in People's Minds

Phillips¹,

Tepper²,

Goya‐Tocchetto³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The extent of inequality that people perceive in the world is often a better predictor of individual and societal outcomes than the level of inequality that actually exists. As such, scholars from across the social sciences, including economics, sociology, psychology, and political science, have recently worked to understand individuals’ (mis)perceptions of inequality. Unfortunately, many researchers treat the process underlying such perceptions as a black box, focusing predominantly on lay people’s numeric estimates of inequality, and paying less attention to how people come to form these perceptions or what these perceptions mean to participants. In the current review, we draw on research in perception, cognition, and developmental and social psychology, to introduce a novel comprehensive framework for understanding individuals’ perceptions of inequality. We argue that subjective perceptions of inequality should be viewed as a process that unfolds across five interlinked and iterative stages. To form perceptions of the scope of inequality in society, people need to (1) have access to inequality cues in the world, (2) attend to these cues, (3) comprehend these cues, (4) process these cues (often succumbing to motivational biases), and (5) summarize these cues into a meaningful representation of inequality. Our framework highlights when and why lay people may misperceive the scope of inequality in society and provides a roadmap for research to examine how the processes in people's minds affect the outcomes researchers are ultimately interested in.

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Structurally Unjust: How Lay Beliefs about Racism Relate to Perceptions of and Responses to Racial Inequality in Criminal Justice

Cited by 24 publications

References 15 publications

Class Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Immigration and Race Among Working‐Class Whites1

Class Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Immigration and Race Among Working‐Class Whites1

The Misperception of Racial Economic Inequality

Inequality in People's Minds

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