The Meaning and Consequences of Perceived Discrimination in Disadvantaged and Privileged Social Groups

The subjective meaning and consequences of perceived discrimination depend on the position of one's group in the social structure. For members of disadvantaged groups, attributions to prejudice are likely to be internal, stable, uncontrollable, and convey widespread exclusion and devaluation of one's group. For members of privileged groups, the meaning of attributions to prejudice is more localized. Because of such meaning differences, attributions to prejudice are considerably more harmful for the psychological well-being of members of disadvantaged groups than they are for members of privileged groups. According to the Rejection-Identification Model (Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999), members of disadvantaged groups cope with the pain of attributions to prejudice by increasing identification with their disadvantaged group. We conclude with an exploration of the social contextual factors that can affect how the disadvantaged cope, and a discussion of the challenges facing future research on attributions to prejudice.