Reacting to impending discrimination: Compensation for prejudice and attributions to discrimination

This experiment tested the hypothesis that stigmatized people attempt to co mpensate for or overcome the effects of prejudice on social interactions. I n an adaptation of Ruggiero and Taylor's minimization of discrimination des ign, the authors informed 134 women either prior to or after completing a t ask that there was some chance that a prejudiced man would evaluate them. T he women who were forewarned about prejudice compensated for this threat by distancing themselves from traditional feminine stereotypes relative to th e women who learned about prejudice only after the experimental task was co mpleted. However, the overall impression created by the women who were fore warned about prejudice suffered in this process. In addition, the authors d id not replicate the minimization of discrimination finding. Regardless of when the women learned about prejudice, those who faced certain and possibl e prejudice were equally likely to attribute failing feedback to discrimina tion.