Two

In February and March, two articles were published in two of the top psychology journals. They were both about interracial interactions, and each, by itself, made sense. Put side by side, however, there’s something else going on…and frankly, I need help figuring it out. So I call on you, dear readers, to let me know your thoughts on this.

I’ve put the full text of the abstracts at the bottom for your reference, copyright owned by the journals, mind you. I’ll summarize them here in my terms first:

1. “Expect the unexpected”: Robyn Mallett and colleagues found that White people tend to expect that interactions with Black people will go much worse than they actually do. (This is a forecasting error.) This happens because White people, preparing for an interracial interaction, focus on the differences between them and Black people, and if they are just told to focus on the similarities, then they expect (accurately) more pleasant interactions. (I don’t think they show data about expectations for Black participants.)

2. “Beyond Contact”: Tamar Seguy and colleagues (including Jack Dovidio – he’s good people) look at power and conversation topic preferences in interracial interactions: White people want to talk about similarities, Black people want to talk about differences. Actually, Black people also want to talk about similarities just as much as White people do, but they want to talk about power disparities way more than White people do. This is driven by motivation for change in group-based power. In fact, those who most wanted to talk about power disparities are: highly identified Black folks, and the race-conscious White folks (compared to others of their racial background). The ones who most wanted to talk about commonalities are highly identified White folks.

Put together we are getting this picture that going into interactions, White people are thinking about interracial differences and expecting negative experiences, but also hoping to talk about commonalities. And, I suspect and other research that Dr. Dovidio presented at the recent SPSP conference supports, Black people (or any minority group member in a status-differential situation), who also want to talk about commonalities because it builds stronger bonds between people, will agree to talk about commonalities. So the White people are a little surprised and frankly relieved to find the conversation on topics they are comfortable with, and walk away feeling dandy. Meanwhile are people of color sacrificing opportunities to challenge White people in order to build a sense of unity first? The question is, when will the conversation about differences come up?

We need truth in order to attain justice, justice to get to unity, and unity for humanity’s well-being, security, and peace.
“Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues…” -Abdu’l-Baha
“The purpose of justice is the appearance of unity…” – Baha’u'llah
“The well-being of humankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.” -Baha’u'llah

So we need to have that conversation about differences before we can get to world peace. That’s my interpretation of what God’s trying to tell us.

What we have are two different approaches to interracial interactions, two sets of expectations and preferences, one event, with two unique experiences of it. And then what? what comes next?

Here are the abstracts:

1 (full). Expect the unexpected: Failure to anticipate similarities leads to an intergroup forecasting error, by Robyn Mallett, Timothy Wilson, and Dan Gilbert, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94 (2): 265-277; Feb 2008.
Abstract: People often expect interactions with outgroup members to go poorly, but little research examines the accuracy of these expectations, reasons why expectations might be negatively biased, and ways to bring expectations in line with experiences. The authors found that intergroup interactions were more positive than people expected them to be (Pilot Study, Study 1). One reason for this intergroup forecasting error is that people focus on their dissimilarities with outgroup members (Study 1). When the authors focused White participants’ attention on the ways they were similar to a Black participant, their intergroup expectations changed to match their positive experiences (Studies 2 & 3). Regardless of focus, Whites expected to have pleasant intragroup interactions, and they were accurate (Study 4).

2 (full): Beyond Contact: Intergroup Contact in the Context of Power Relations, by Tamar Saguy, John F. Dovidio, and Felicia Pratto, published by the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 34, No. 3, 432-445 (2008).
Abstract: This work investigated how group-based power affects the motivations and preferences that members of advantaged and disadvantaged groups bring to situations of contact. To measure the preferred content of interactions, desires to address particular topics in intergroup contact were assessed for both experimental groups (Study 1) and real groups (Study 2). As predicted, across both studies, the desire to talk about power was greater among members of disadvantaged than of advantaged groups. This difference was mediated by motivation for change in group-based power. Study 2 further demonstrated that more highly identified members of disadvantaged groups wanted to talk about power more. Members of advantaged groups generally preferred to talk about commonalities between the groups more than about group-based power, and this desire was greater with higher levels of identification. However, perceiving that their group’s advantage was illegitimate increased the desire of advantaged group members to address power in intergroup interactions.