You Just Don’t Get Us!: Positive, but Non-Verifying, Evaluations Foster Prejudice and Discrimination

Researchers have assumed that self-enhancement strivings motivate compensatory prejudice against minorities. We ask if self-verification strivings might explain compensatory prejudice more parsimoniously. Three studies tested whether receiving overly positive evaluations from outgroup members (immigrants) amplifies prejudice and discrimination against them. In Experiment 1 participants who received excessively positive evaluations from immigrants expressed less liking for them and donated less to them than those who received negative verifying feedback. Experiment 2 replicated these findings only when participants had sufficient time to reflect on the feedback. Experiment 3 indicated that diminished perceptions of being understood mediated the impact of overly positive evaluations on prejudicial reactions. These results suggest that self-verification theory offers a more parsimonious account of compensatory prejudice than self-enhancement theory.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Social Psychology

• Publication date

  2018-07-01

• Fields of study

  Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1027/1864-9335/a000346
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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