COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Perceiving Discrimination

研究表明，被污名化群体的成员会对他们或他们群体中的其他成员是偏见和歧视的受害者的暗示特别警惕。然而，与此同时，也有证据表明，受污名化群体的成员往往不愿表明他们本人是偏见或歧视的目标，除非这种歧视是公然的。还发现，少数群体成员对针对其社会群体其他成员的歧视特别敏感，但一般不认为歧视发生在他们个人身上。综上所述，这些发现表明，被污名化的群体成员既高度关注歧视的发生，但同时，当他们实际发生歧视时，他们没有注意到歧视，将其解释为歧视以外的因素，或者干脆否认。从社会心理学的角度来看，这种自相矛盾的发现具有经验和实践意义。了解个人如何以及何时感知歧视对受影响个人的心理健康以及跨类别社会互动和行为的质量都具有重要影响。如果来自受污名化群体的个人错误地认为(或高估或低估)发生在他们身上的事件是歧视性的，他们可能会不适当地避开事实上并不偏向他们的情况或个人，或者可能没有准备好应对或回应真正的歧视。任何一种错误都可能对他们的福祉产生深远的影响，因为对歧视的看法与负面的健康结果有关。此外，个体之间或个体之间对歧视的感知的不同可能导致群体间关系中的潜在误解，了解这些分歧有助于缓解这种紧张。本项目测试了歧视感知的三阶段社会认知模型，该模型可用于理解被污名化和非被污名化的群体成员对歧视的感知(或误解)。该模型提出，个人最初可能会怀疑一种行为可能是歧视性的，第二种情况是，他们可能会也可能不会将事件解释为歧视造成的。最后，他们可以选择报告或不公开报告歧视。此外，还提出，在一个阶段增加对歧视的看法(例如，最初的看法)的同样的背景因素，可能会同时减少后来的解释或报告。与以前的解释只预测语境变量对知觉的主要影响不同，当前的方法预测不同的语境将对歧视敏感性产生不同的影响，这取决于所考虑的阶段。

Research has shown that members of stigmatized groups will be particularly vigilant to cues that they or other members of their group are the victims of prejudice and discrimination. At the same time, however, it has also been shown that members of stigmatized groups are frequently unwilling to indicate that they have personally been the target of prejudice or discrimination, except when that discrimination is blatant. It has also been found that members of minority groups are particularly sensitive to discrimination directed at other members of their social group, but do not generally perceive that discrimination has occurred to them personally. Taken together, these findings suggest that stigmatized group members are both highly concerned about the occurrence of discrimination at large, and yet at the same time, when such discrimination actually occurs to them, they do not notice it, interpret it as due to some factor other than discrimination, or simply deny it.Such paradoxical findings have both empirical and practical interest from a social psychological perspective. Understanding how and when individuals perceive discrimination has important implications for both the psychological health of the affected individuals, as well as the quality of cross-category social interactions and behavior. If individuals from stigmatized groups misperceive (either by over- or under-estimating) that events that occur to them are discriminatory, they may inappropriately avoid situations or individuals who are not in fact biased toward them, or may be unprepared to cope with or respond to true discrimination. Either error may have profound consequences for their well being, because perceptions of discrimination are associated with negative health outcomes. Furthermore, disagreements in perceptions of discrimination between or among individuals may lead to potential misunderstandings in intergroup relationships, and understanding these disagreements could help relieve some of this tension.This project tests a 3-stage social-cognitive model of the perceptions of discrimination that can be used to understand the perceptions (or misperceptions) of discrimination on the part of stigmatized and non-stigmatized group members. The model proposes that individuals may or may not initially become suspicious that a behavior might be discriminatory, and secondarily they may or may not interpret the event as being caused by discrimination. Finally, they may choose either to report or not to report the discrimination publicly. Furthermore, it is proposed that the same contextual factors that increase perceptions of discrimination at one stage (for instance, initial perceptions), may simultaneously decrease its later interpretation or reporting. Unlike prior explanations, which only predict main effects of contextual variables on perceptions, the current approach predicts that different contexts will have different influences on sensitivity to discrimination, depending upon the stage being considered.