Who Will I Be: The Effect of Identity Salience on Black Women’s Perceptions of Discrimination

Abstract

In an attempt to determine to which marginal status Black women will attribute discrimination, this study looks to determine whether identity salience can affect attributions of discrimination. Taking into consideration the double-jeopardy hypothesis, ethnic-prominence hypothesis and the gender-prominence hypothesis, this study primed Black and White women for gender or gender and ethnicity. Based on the previously mentioned hypotheses, I expected Black women given no prime to attribute discrimination to their ethnicity, those given a gender prime to attribute discrimination to their gender, and those given the gender-ethnicity prime to equally attribute discrimination to both their gender and ethnicity. Results of this study only showed support for the ethnic-prominence hypothesis, as only my prediction about Black women in the control prime was correct. Limitations of this study include the use of Princeton University undergraduate females, who may have been suspicious of the study’s goals because of their educational background, and the inability to probe participants beforehand about their ethnic and gender identity centrality. Future research should look at the effect of situation on perceptions of discrimination, as well as expanding the double-jeopardy hypothesis to include other marginal identities related to ethnicity and gender.