Date of Award
2021
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Benjamin Saunders
Committee Chair and Members
Benjamin Saunders, Chair
Philip Wong
John Jost
Keywords
Racial identity, Racism, System justification, White defensiveness, White fragility, Whiteness
Abstract
Racial inequality pervades American society, yet this reality is largely denied or misattributed by many White people (Bonilla-Silva & Dietrich, 2011). Why are White Americans so resistant to acknowledging their privilege as unearned and therefore illegitimate? While some research suggests nominal benefit of raising awareness of White privilege (e.g., decreases in modern racist beliefs), other work indicates outright defensive reactions (e.g., increased hardship claiming). System Justification Theory conceptualizes these defenses as attempts to legitimize the current social order and resist change. In this dissertation, I sought to address the inconsistencies in the literature by identifying factors that affect the type of reactions White people have to being reminded of White privilege. Using an experimental paradigm comparing a condition in which participants read a paragraph about White privilege to a control paragraph about chairs, in a sample of 500 White Mechanical Turk participants, we investigated the degree to which White racial identity, social dominance orientation, and self-regard affected defensive or non-defensive reactions, as measured by racial system justification, colorblind racism, and affirmative action attitudes. We found significant condition x White racial self-regard interactive effects on racial system justification, colorblind racism and affirmative action attitudes. Individuals low in White racial self-regard defended the racial status quo in response to evidence of White privilege, whereas those who were racially secure were able to incorporate information about White privilege and acknowledge systemic racism. Thus, interventions geared toward maintaining racial self-regard while interrogating the ways White people perpetuate racial inequality may be necessary to sustain White engagement in dismantling racism.
Recommended Citation
Strupp-Levitsky, Michael, "Who’s afraid of whiteness? White privilege, white racial identity and the motivated defense of white supremacy" (2021). Selected Full-Text Dissertations 2020-. 24.
https://digitalcommons.liu.edu/brooklyn_fulltext_dis/24