Collaborative Research: SBP: Understanding the Cultural and Psychological Roots of Inequality Maintenance: Omissions of Native Americans

与其他种族群体相比，美国原住民在生活的许多重要领域面临着不成比例的负面结果，包括教育、收入、住房和刑事司法。社会心理学有助于理解成见、偏见和歧视等偏见是如何导致印第安人的不同结果的。这个研究小组发现了另一种明显的偏见，它破坏了美洲原住民的机会和福祉：遗漏偏见。遗漏偏见指的是印第安人被写出公众意识的方式。例如，研究表明，相对于其他群体，主流电视和新闻媒体很少包括土著人民或讨论土著问题。美国人对印第安人的了解也相对较少，而且大多是不准确的。例如，美国学校的大部分历史课程只在20世纪以前的背景下讨论土著人民，对目前生活在美国的520万印第安人视而不见。这个项目的研究记录了土著的遗漏的范围和心理影响，并探讨了非土著美国人如何为这些遗漏辩护。研究还考察了土著居民的不作为与非土著居民的民族尊重之间关系的动机基础，并测试了有可能改善土著人民福祉的干预措施的有效性。这个项目探索了印第安人的偏见和遗漏的范围，以及使这些偏见永久化的心理过程。这项研究基于这样一种观察，即美国的核心文化叙事是一个特殊的、道德优越的、公平的、精英社会。然而，原住民在美国的历史和当代经历，包括国家批准的暴力和源于该国定居者殖民起源的歧视，与这些核心文化叙事相矛盾。因此，有一种假设认为，原住民的遗漏源于非原住民美国人想要保护这些核心文化叙事和维持民族自尊的愿望——一种对自己国家的依恋和自豪感。通过使用大量的美国土著参与者样本以及来自美国各地的非土著成年人样本，三条研究线测试了这一理论框架的原则。第一阶段的研究记录了原住民被忽视的范围和心理影响，包括评估原住民在美国社会中如何以及在哪些领域经历被忽视，以及被忽视对个人和社区福祉的影响。其他研究探讨了非土著美国人如何以及在多大程度上证明土著参与者记录的遗漏，以及土著遗漏的理由是否对非土著起着文化保护作用。研究的最后阶段通过检查美国主流机构对土著省略的承认（与辩护）是否可以提高土著美国人的个人和集体福祉，来检验承认土著省略作为改善土著人民福祉的一种手段的功效。该研究项目旨在通过为理解一种未被充分研究的偏见形式奠定理论基础，并通过揭示印第安人的经历来扩展心理学文献——印第安人在心理学理论和研究中被大大低估了。该项目还记录并帮助改变使社会不平等现象长期存在的心理过程，特别是美洲土著所经历的社会不平等现象，从而为扩大参与的科学作出贡献。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Compared to other racial groups, Native Americans (the Indigenous Peoples of the United States) face disproportionately negative outcomes across many consequential domains of life, including education, income, housing, and criminal justice. Social psychology helps to understand how biases such as stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination contribute to Native Americans’ disparate outcomes. This research team has identified another distinct form of bias that undermines Native Americans’ opportunities and wellbeing: biases of omission. Biases of omission refer to the ways in which Native Americans are written out of public consciousness. For example, research demonstrates that relative to other groups, mainstream television and news media rarely include Native People or discuss Native issues. Americans are also taught relatively little -- and largely inaccurate -- information about Native Americans. As one example, the majority of history curricula in American schools discuss Native Peoples only in pre-20th century contexts, rendering invisible the 5.2 million Native Americans currently living in the United States. The research in this project documents the scope and psychological impact of Native omissions, and explores how non-Native Americans justify those omissions. Studies also examine the motivational underpinnings of the relation between justifications of Native omissions and non-Natives’ national esteem, and test the efficacy of interventions that offer potential for improving Native peoples’ wellbeing. This project explores both the scope of biases of omissions of Native Americans and the psychological processes that perpetuate these biases. The research is based on the observation that a core cultural narrative of the United States is that of an exceptional, morally superior, equitable, and meritocratic society. Yet Native Peoples’ historic and contemporary experiences in the United States, including state-sanctioned violence and discrimination arising from the country’s settler colonial origins, contradicts these core cultural narratives. It is therefore hypothesized that Native omissions arise from a desire among non-Native Americans to protect these core cultural narratives and to maintain national esteem -- a sense of attachment to and pride in one’s nation. Three lines of studies test the tenets of this theoretical framework using large samples of Native American participants coupled with samples of non-Native adults from across the United States. The first phase of research documents the scope and psychological impact of Native omissions, including assessments of how and in what domains Native People experience omissions in U.S. society and the effect of omissions on individual and community wellbeing. Additional studies explore how and to what extent non-Native Americans justify omissions documented by Native participants, and whether justifications of Native omissions play a culturally protective role for non-Natives. The final phase of research examines the efficacy of acknowledging Native omissions as a means of improving Native peoples’ wellbeing by examining whether acknowledgements (vs. justifications) of Native omissions by mainstream U.S. institutions can enhance Native Americans’ individual and collective wellbeing. The program of research aims to expand the psychological literature by laying the theoretical groundwork for understanding an understudied form of bias and by shedding light on the experiences of Native Americans -- people who are vastly underrepresented in psychological theory and research. The project also documents and helps to change the psychological processes that perpetuate social inequalities, particularly those experienced by Native Americans, thereby contributing to the science of broadening participation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.