Abstract
Participants from various ethnic groups were included in a study of the effects of collective self-esteem (CSE) on construal of racism. It was hypothesized that low CSE participants are more likely than high CSE participants to construe ambiguous behavior targeted at their group members as racist. Personal self-esteem was hypothesized to not predict construal of racism. It was further hypothesized that low CSE participants are more likely than high CSE participants to attribute higher degrees of racism to the same incident when the victim is an in-group member. Participants interpreted scenarios in which an ‘Active Agent’ was reported to exhibit ambiguous behavior to the disadvantage of a ‘Passive Agent.’ Group membership of passive agents were manipulated to create in-group (same as the subject) and out-group (different group) conditions. Results supported the original hypotheses.
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