Two main research questions guide this proposal. First, does a systemic perspective of racism encourage more structural and systemic attributions of inequality? If so, how? Specifically, does an informational intervention which provides a systemic perspective for the causes of a racial disparity lead individuals to endorse more structural explanations for the disparity? Second, what are the psychological implications of a systemic perspective, namely on individuals’ moral obligations to take action to change the conditions which lead to such a disparity? What might be the implications of this psychological change on one’s sense of agency in making a change within different levels of society (e.g., their local community, national policy)?
Adapting theory-based interventions which draw from attribution retraining and informational interventions designed to improve the accuracy of perceptions of inequality, the proposed study will use an informational intervention paradigm (1) to manipulate individuals’ attributions of racial disparities and (2) to understand the consequences of holding one of two different perspectives of the causes of racial disparities. In this project, I plan to compare a systemic perspective to an “interpersonal perspective," or a perspective where the primary focus is not on the structures or systems of racial inequality, but rather on racism occuring in interpersonal interactions.
