Racial Inequality at the Brink: How Economic Inequality Exacerbates Racial Prejudice and the Potential Alleviating Role of Policies Which Provide Basic Economic Resources

From 1983 to 2016, the median White family wealth increased from about 8 to 13 times of that of the median Black family, and the pandemic had more negative effects on the economic status and mortality of Black families. Yet few studies investigate how inequality impacts individuals’ psychological processing and, in turn, might increase racial prejudice among whites or how it affects racial prejudice or racial coalition building among minorities. Psychologists Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi and Shigehiro Oishi hypothesize that inequality increases perceived intergroup competition for resources and exacerbates prejudice (the inequality group-competition hypothesis). Inequality may also exacerbate intergroup prejudice between racial minority groups, stifling coalition building. Providing basic economic resources,4 under some circumstances, may mitigate the association between inequality and prejudice by assuaging people’s fears of competing for limited resources. The investigators will conduct two social-psychological experiments that will address the following questions: 1) to what extent does economic inequality increase perceived competition? 2) to what extent does it exacerbate prejudice via perceived competition? 3) to what extent does providing basic economic resources mitigate prejudice under conditions of high inequality? The experiments seek to better understand why and for whom inequality may exacerbate prejudice, and to reveal potential avenues for mitigating this association.