Confronting Discrimination: Latina Women’s Beliefs vs. Behaviors

Marginalized groups of people tend to avoid publicly confronting prejudice despite claiming they would confront someone who expressed prejudice against them (Woodzicka & LaFrance, 1999). One reason for non-confrontation is the fear of social costs, such as being labeled as a complainer or whiner (Kaiser & Miller, 2001). For example, Woodzicka and LaFrance (1999) found that women’s beliefs on confrontations and their actual behaviors in a discriminatory situation were contradictory. In a hypothetical situation, women believed they would directly challenge discrimination and feel angry in that situation (Study 1). However, women placed in an actual discriminatory situation felt afraid and were unlikely to directly challenge discrimination (Study 2). We expect to find similar results when conducting similar research with Latina women in a racial discriminatory situation. We will be recruiting Latina women at CSU San Bernardino to participate in a two-part study. In Part 1, participants read a hypothetical scenario where they are the target of a racist comment. In Part 2, participants will play an online game of “CSUSB Survivor” with ostensibly four other players where they will direct a racist or equally offensive but non-racist comment at the participant. Responses will be coded in terms of degree of confrontation following the procedure in Woodzicka and LaFrance (1999). We expect greater anticipated confrontation and anger in the hypothetical scenario, but the opposite pattern in actual responses and report greater fear than anger. Support of our hypothesis will suggest that Latina women’s anticipated responses will conflict with their actual behaviors