COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Perceiving Discrimination

研究表明，被污名化群体的成员会特别警惕他们或其群体的其他成员是偏见和歧视受害者的迹象。然而，与此同时，也有证据表明，遭鄙视贬斥群体的成员往往不愿意表明他们本人是偏见或歧视的对象，除非这种歧视是公然的。人们还发现，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，但一般不认为他们个人受到歧视。综上所述，这些研究结果表明，污名化群体的成员都高度关注的歧视发生在大，但同时，当这种歧视实际上发生在他们身上，他们没有注意到它，解释它是由于一些因素以外的歧视，或干脆否认它。这种矛盾的发现，从社会心理学的角度来看，经验和实践的兴趣。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具有重要意义。如果来自被污名化群体的个人错误地认为（无论是高估还是低估）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实际上并不偏向他们的情况或个人，或者可能没有准备好科普或应对真正的歧视。任何一种错误都可能对他们的福祉产生深远的影响，因为歧视的观念与负面的健康结果有关。此外，个人之间的歧视观念的分歧可能会导致群体间关系的潜在误解，理解这些分歧可能有助于缓解这种紧张局势。本项目测试了一个3阶段的歧视观念的社会认知模型，该模型可用于理解歧视的看法（或误解）的一部分，污名化和非污名化的群体成员。该模型提出，个人最初可能会或可能不会怀疑某一行为可能是歧视性的，其次，他们可能会或可能不会将该事件解释为由歧视引起的。最后，他们可以选择公开举报或不举报歧视行为。此外，有人提出，在某一阶段增加对歧视的看法（例如，最初的看法）的背景因素，可能同时减少后来对歧视的解释或报告。与先前的解释，这只预测的主要影响的上下文变量的看法，目前的方法预测，不同的背景下将有不同的影响，歧视的敏感性，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.