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Anti-Black racism in America renders Black people both invisible and hypervisible, at times. Here, we draw on previous research on inattentional blindness, a phenomenon whereby people fail to perceive something or someone (e.g., a person walking about) in their environment when attending to another feature of their environment (e.g., other people playing a ball game). We sought to replicate past work examining the conditions under which heterosexual White women fail to perceive a Black man walking through a complex scene. Specifically, we investigated whether selective inattention to a task-irrelevant person walking through a scene of two teams passing basketballs may depend on two factors: (a) the race of the person walking through the scene (Black vs. White), and (b) the interpersonal goal of the viewer (searching for a coworker, neighbor, friend, romantic partner, or a control condition)—hence the reason we recruited heterosexual White women participants. Consistent with the original work, across three studies, we found a main effect of target race such that heterosexual White women participants were more likely to notice the White (vs. Black) man walking through the ball-passing scene. Inconsistent with the original work, we did not find that this effect was moderated by the interpersonal goal condition. We discuss the implications of the current findings and future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In past work, White Americans' beliefs about Black poverty have predicted lower perceived work ethic of the poor, and, thus, less welfare support. In this article, we examine whether beliefs about White poverty predict more positive attributions about the poor among three representative samples of White Americans. Study 1 reveals that White (but not Black) Americans' White-poor beliefs predict increased perceptions that welfare recipients are hardworking, which predict more welfare support. Study 2 demonstrates that the link between White Americans' White-poor beliefs and the humanization of welfare recipients is stronger among White Americans who feel intergroup status threat (i.e., those who hold racial zero-sum beliefs). Study 3 replicates and extends Study 2 by using an experimental approach. Together, these data suggest that White Americans' White-poor beliefs function to humanize welfare recipients as a means to justify policies that could help the ingroup, preserving the racial status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most antiracism protests of 2020 were peaceful, at times, there was extreme use of force. Drawing on research that groups amplify intergroup threats, we test whether use of force is perceived as particularly justified against groups of Black people protesting racism. In Study 1, White Americans perceived a group of Black people peacefully protesting racism to be more threatening and more deserving of use of force than the same Black people protesting individually. Notably, when the protest topic did not threaten the racial hierarchy (i.e., environmental protection), Black groups (vs. individuals) no longer amplified perceived threat nor support for force. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that this tendency for groups to amplify intergroup threat was stronger among White Americans motivated to maintain the status quo (i.e., social conservatives). We conclude that Black groups protesting racism activate intergroup threats with implications for support for using force against them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has demonstrated that individuals experiencing trauma-related shame exhibit greater posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. However, little research has investigated additional factors relevant to the shame–PTSD relationship. The current study examined the role of avoidance and approach coping in accounting for the trauma-related shame–PTSD association among 60 women who had experienced interpersonal trauma. Indirect effects tests revealed that avoidance coping partially accounted for the association between shame and interviewer-assessed PTSD symptoms, β =.21, SE = 0.08, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [0.03, 0.36]. These findings offer a novel contribution to the growing literature examining negative outcomes following interpersonal trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, both economic inequality and political conflict are on the rise. We investigated whether subjective socioeconomic status (SSS) may help explain why these dual patterns emerge. We hypothesized that higher SSS may increase naïve realism—the belief that one perceives the world as it is, rather than as interpreted through one's own knowledge and beliefs—regarding political issues. Using a representative sample of the American electorate, we found that higher SSS predicted more political naïve realism toward those from a different political party (Study 1). The remaining experiments examined the causal relationship between SSS and political naïve realism (Studies 2–5). We extended these findings by investigating whether SSS influenced participants' willingness to exclude those with contrary views from a vote (Studies 4 and 5). Together, these studies demonstrate that SSS enhances political naïve realism and can lead to the exclusion of others with contrary opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]