White (but Not Black) Americans Continue to See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game; White Conservatives (but Not Moderates or Liberals) See Themselves as Losing

Abstract

In a 2011 article in this journal entitled “Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing” ( Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 215–218), Norton and Sommers assessed Black and White Americans’ perceptions of anti-Black and anti-White bias across the previous 6 decades—from the 1950s to the 2000s. They presented two key findings: White (but not Black) respondents perceived decreases in anti-Black bias to be associated with increases in anti-White bias, signaling the perception that racism is a zero-sum game; White respondents rated anti-White bias as more pronounced than anti-Black bias in the 2000s, signaling the perception that they were losing the zero-sum game. We collected new data to examine whether the key findings would be evident nearly a decade later and whether political ideology would moderate perceptions. Liberal, moderate, and conservative White (but not Black) Americans alike believed that racism is a zero-sum game. Liberal White Americans saw racism as a zero-sum game they were winning by a lot, moderate White Americans saw it as a game they were winning by only a little, and conservative White Americans saw it as a game they were losing. This work has clear implications for public policy and behavioral science and lays the groundwork for future research that examines to what extent racial differences in perceptions of racism by political ideology are changing over time.

Attributions to discrimination in multiracial contexts: Isolating the effect of target group membership.

“…C. Nelson et al, 2013). With regards to discrimination directed at White people, most research demonstrates that White people perceive more anti-White discrimination than POC (Norton & Sommers, 2011; Peacock & Biernat, 2023; Rasmussen et al, 2022; although, cf. Earle & Hodson, 2020).…”

System justification motivation as a source of backlash against equality‐promoting policies—and what to do about it

“…A second, related implication of identity‐based approaches is that equality‐promoting policies that highlight specific social groups as beneficiaries may engender zero‐sum thinking (e.g., see Davidai & Ongis, 2019; Norton & Sommers, 2011; Rasmussen et al., 2022). When individuals engage in zero‐sum thinking, they perceive material gains for one group (e.g., racial/ethnic minority groups) as inextricably linked to equivalent losses for another (e.g., the White majority group).…”

A Flexible Threshold Theory of Change Perception in Self, Others, and The World

“…The current model offers a different answer: differences in perceived disruption costs to change (beyond people's understanding of the information per se). As put in current terms, conservatives may tend to perceive relatively high disruption costs to change (e.g., as suggested by the finding that they feel more threatened by social change: Rasmussen et al, 2022) and thereby contract their change thresholds whereas liberals may tend to perceive relatively low disruption costs to change and thereby expand their change thresholds. As such, the current model makes a unique prediction for further understanding these groups and related ones: Upon being presented with otherwise identical evidence for potential change, liberals are at risk of over-reaction (jumping to see change where none exists) while conservatives are at risk of under-reaction (missing change that indeed is occurring)-both stemming from a shared underlying psychological mechanism.…”