Motivated racial cognition: Power and implicit goals to affirm or attenuate social hierarchy.

Abstract

Social-structural theorists hold that racial stereotypes enforce social hierarchy by enhancing the status of dominant racial groups, while diminishing the status of subordinate groups. This paper integrates individual and societal levels of analysis by demonstrating that the power concerns of members of a dominant group have important implications for racial stereotyping. To the extent that social hierarchy is considered acceptable, power concerns of dominant group members lead to an increase in racial stereotyping which allows them to affirm their dominant group status. But if dominant group members reject social hierarchy, power concerns are likely to result in discomfort about one's own dominant status, and spark efforts to attenuate social hierarchy. Three experiments explored the effects of priming the concept of power on the racial cognition of European American participants high or low in social dominance orientation (SDO). Study 1 demonstrates that, compared to a control condition, power induced high SDO individuals to evaluate an African American target more negatively and a European American target more positively. By contrast, for low SDO individuals priming power led to a more positive evaluation of the African American target compared to a control condition, suggesting a bias aimed at minimizing hierarchy. Study 2 showed that, in high SDO participants, power lowered the degree of conflict associated with negative evaluations of African Americans, effectively making prejudicial views easier to entertain. For low SDO individuals, however, power rendered evaluations of African Americans and European Americans groups more fraught with evaluative conflict. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated an automatic association between power and the racial categorization of African Americans by high SDO participants. This result underscores that, in some members of the dominant racial group, the concept of power is directly linked to the racial categories that constitute the social hierarchy. The general discussion focuses on the notion that individual racial cognition and motivation is embedded in its societal and cultural context. Although social hierarchy renders racial stereotyping functional to its own reproduction, individuals have a considerable degree of agency that may lead to spontaneous and unconscious pursuit of social justice.