Part 1: Project’s goal and experience
The project’s goal is to research the issue of racial inequality. The project aims at assessing self-presentation in interracial contexts.
Many White people, especially political liberals, currently encourage racial equality. However, experimental studies illustrate an elusive but credible ironic outcome. The white liberals often self-present a lower status and insufficient competence to more inferior ethnicities than to their fellow Whites – suggesting that they look down on minorities stereotyping them as people of a lower status or incompetent. In a recent study on the illustration of competence downshift, the authors investigated the Republican’s and Democrat’s campaign speeches (Dupree & Fiske, 2018). The study found that even though Republicans did not substantially change their campaign language due to their audience’s race, Democrats applied less competence-like dialects to the minority population than to the Whites.
Thus, this project aims at inferring that well-perceived Whites may invoke low status and competence-related bias to ally with minorities. Even with the right intention – to associate with a minority – White liberals could unintentionally invoke negative stereotypes when interacting with the minorities.
Part 2
Impression Management: Self-Presentation
Myers quoted Russel that “Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it” (2018, p.74). Self-serving prejudice and self-handicapping express the extent of our perception of self-image. In the political contexts, people perpetually manage the impressions they induce to the public. Whether the Whites or minority desire to impress, disregard, or appear defenseless in the political arena, they all behave socially and play to their intended audience.
Self-presentation is the need to demonstrate a particular image to the explicit audience and oneself. People do and say things to manage the invoked impression, and they will excuse, justify, and take the blame if it helps uphold the absolute value of the self-image.
The investigation of White’s self-presentation to diverse people encompasses two core domains of social perception: competence and degree of warmth. Individuals wish to appear as honest (warm) and note-worthy (competent) in the social context. So, these two domains will determine how certain people represent themselves their behaviors and attitudes.
Cognitive Dissonance
This concept applies when people experience inconsistency in behaviors and attitudes, and since people are literate of both, they sense a discrepancy, and at times hypocrisy. Thus, people purpose to change as a form of self-justification. In most cases, when someone perceives the contrast, they tend to mitigate the dissonance by believing in the behavior. According to Myers, this concept explains why cigarette smokers are less likely to be convicted than non-smokers that smoking is harmful.
Most high-status groups or Whites acknowledge that they could seem racist or inhuman to minorities, so they self-persuade themselves that they are warm. The egalitarian Whites wish to develop a connection with the minorities. Still, they feel that they lack the needed skills because of inequality, so to reduce the dissonance, they tend to avoid talks or places that entail racial disparities.
Part 3
Potential Issues
Social Dominance Orientation
With the underlying self-presentation and self-justification by reducing dissonance, society is rendered vulnerable to hierarchical conservatism. The whites could wish to maintain absolute superiority over minority groups, while the minor party may indicate a resistance that could threaten social dominance. While more liberal Whites might be altruistic and support less social dominance, they might be faced with a conflict of preserving their high-status and seeming less racist.