Effects OF Mestizaje Racial Ideologies ON Perceptions OF Discrimination In Latinx Populations

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2024

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Mestizaje Racial Ideologies (MRIs) suggest that most Latinxs share a mixed-race ancestry and are thus incapable of within-group discrimination. However, the potentially discriminatory effects of MRIs have not yet been experimentally tested. With this dissertation, I sought to unpack whether exposure to MRIs mask instances of discrimination in Latinx populations with heritage from the Caribbean and Atlantic coast regions of Latin America. To test this question, Latinx participants (S1a; N = 131) and non-Hispanic White participants (S1b; N = 133) interacted with a social media page endorsing MRIs, or an identity-relevant control social media page, before indicating whether they would support an Afro-Latino employee’s discrimination lawsuit against his White Latino employer. Study 2 (N = 126) examined the effects of MRIs compared to a control social media page that was not identity-relevant. Study 3 (N = 196) compared the discriminatory effects of MRIs to colorblindness. Results across studies indicated that exposure to MRI content increased Latinx participants’ perceptions of company fairness compared to neutral or colorblind content (S2, S3), particularly if they personally endorsed MRIs (S1a). The same patterns were demonstrated with non-Hispanic White participants, although they were not statistically significant (S1b). Perceptions of fairness tended to negatively predict perceptions of discrimination in the employee’s lawsuit. Overall, this work proposes MRIs as a racial ideology operating within Latinx populations, and demonstrates the first experimental evidence of their potentially negative consequences.

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Psychology

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111 pages

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