Collaborative Research/RUI: Factors that Affect the Likelihood of Prejudice Confrontation

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This research project will advance understanding in the area of prejudice and stigma reduction by contributing to understanding the obstacles people face in prejudice confrontation. Prejudice remains a significant and frequent experience for members of stigmatized groups; one with important consequences for physical and psychological well-being. Previous research on prejudice reduction demonstrates that one effective way to decrease prejudice is to confront it when it occurs. Not only does prejudice confrontation reduce subsequent expressions of prejudice, but it also empowers victims of prejudice. Despite these positive consequences of prejudice confrontation, people often refrain from confronting the prejudice they witness. Understanding the factors that predict whether people will confront prejudice would benefit our understanding of an important social psychological phenomenon. The project also includes development of a training program to teach people how to overcome the obstacles to confrontation. This research builds on previous knowledge about prejudice confrontation. The first set of studies investigates participants' judgments about the urgency of taking action against prejudice by measuring perceptions of harm and injustice as a function of the type of prejudice, target presence, and witness reactions. The second set of studies measures participants' perceptions of responsibility for confronting prejudice as a function of the number of witnesses, target presence, and role accountability. The third and final set of studies examines whether participants confront prejudice as a function of perceptions of confrontation self-efficacy and outcome expectancies. Importantly, this research can provide a base from which to build training programs to empower those who witness prejudice to voice their disapproval, and ultimately these findings may generalize and be useful in attenuating the occurrence of other incivilities (e.g., bullying, teasing).