Latinos Reactions to Ingroup and Outgroup Sexism Claimants

RM 216

The current study investigated how Latino Americans respond to ingroup (e.g. Latino American) vs. outgroup (e.g. White Americans) member’s claims of gender discrimination. Preliminary research has found that when white women claimed discrimination, they were evaluated more positively by other women if gender identification was high. However, Latina women were not evaluated positively even when gender identification was high. The goal of the current research was to expand on these results by manipulating the race of a man to which a female claimant lost an opportunity. Female participants were randomly assigned to read an article about a woman (either White or Latina) losing a job to a man (either White or Latino) either claiming discrimination or not claiming discrimination totaling eight conditions (White woman losing to a White man, White woman losing to a Latino man, Latina woman losing to a White man, Latina woman losing to a Latino man; all four conditions either included a discrimination claim or excluded a discrimination claim). Participants then completed selfreport measures of meritocracy, gender identification, and racial identification. The results showed that gender identification only predicted positive evaluation when a White woman lost to a White man and when a Latina woman lost to Latino man. Gender identification did not predict positive evaluations of a Latina woman losing to White man or a White woman losing to a Latino man. This result suggests that gender identification will only provide benefits for women who lose opportunities to men of their same race.