Low prejudiced people, their ideals, and outgroup overcompensation

The behavior and subsequent affect of people low in prejudice were examined in four experiments. In Study 1, 52 people evaluated two targets differing primarily in sexual orientation and then completed mood and prejudice measures. Although people high in prejudice discriminated against a homosexual target, people low and moderate in prejudice favored this target. In Study 2, 57 people were given target intellectual ability information designed to either challenge or not challenge any propensity towards the outgroup favoritism observed in Study 1. Specifically, study participants evaluated either a more qualified homosexual and a less qualified heterosexual (not challenging outgroup favoritism) or a less qualified homosexual and a more qualified heterosexual (challenging outgroup favoritism). Although low prejudiced people favored the homosexual target when he was better qualified, they were unwilling to make this same distinction when the heterosexual target was more qualified. Study 3 was designed to understand if such overcompensation results from a need to restore social justice. Study participants (n = 77) were made to believe their peers were either discriminatory, overcompensatory, or neutral towards a minority member. As expected for low prejudiced people, only by making them believe their peers overcompensate a minority group member, thereby eliminating any extant need to restore social justice, was outgroup favoritism eliminated. Finally, Study 4 assessed the extent to which the low prejudiced person's tendency to overcompensate a minority member rests on a well-internalized system of beliefs. Following a (mortality salience) manipulation designed either to engage or not engage the internalized belief system, 35 low prejudiced people completed the same procedure employed in Study 1. Results revealed increased overcompensation of a homosexual for participants whose internalized beliefs were engaged. Further, in all four studies, participants failed to ma