Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University.
Department of Psychology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.
Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol. 2021 Apr;27(2):201-213. doi: 10.1037/cdp0000331. Epub 2020 Apr 13.
Interactions between members of different racial and ethnic groups are often stressful. These interactions are stressful, in part, because they contribute to social identity threat-the fear of being judged or treated negatively based on one's social group membership. Previous work separately suggests that the diversity of an interaction partner's friendship network and the goals that people set for themselves influence social identity threat. Bringing these two bodies of work together, the present research examines whether adopting a learning (vs. performance) goal mitigates identity threat for Black people anticipating an interaction with a White partner who had a racially homogenous (vs. diverse) friendship network (a context previously shown to arouse identity threat).
Two experimental studies ( = 310) were conducted. Black adults ( = 29.66, 64% women) primed with either a performance or learning goal anticipated an interaction with a White partner who had either a racially diverse (Study 1) or racially homogenous (Studies 1 and 2) friendship network. After, we assessed participants' social identity threat and anticipated interaction experiences.
Black adults primed with learning (vs. performance) goals expected to be perceived more positively by their interaction partner and expected to have more positive interaction experiences when they anticipated an interaction with a White partner who had a racially homogenous network of friends.
These findings suggest that learning goals can mitigate threat among Black individuals within an otherwise identity-threatening interaction context, thus opening the door for positive interracial contact in the future even in the context of challenging interracial interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
不同种族和族裔群体成员之间的相互作用往往是有压力的。这些相互作用之所以具有压力，部分原因是它们会导致社会认同威胁——担心基于自己的社会群体成员身份而受到评判或负面对待。先前的工作分别表明，互动伙伴的友谊网络的多样性以及人们为自己设定的目标会影响社会认同威胁。将这两个研究领域结合起来，本研究考察了在与具有同质（而非多样化）友谊网络的白人伙伴进行互动时，黑人参与者采用学习（而非表现）目标是否可以减轻身份威胁（这是一个先前已被证明会引起身份威胁的情境）。
进行了两项实验研究（n=310）。黑人成年人（n=29.66，64%为女性）被提示采用表现或学习目标，然后预期与具有多样化（研究 1）或同质性（研究 1 和 2）友谊网络的白人伙伴进行互动。之后，我们评估了参与者的社会认同威胁和预期的互动体验。
被提示采用学习（而非表现）目标的黑人成年人预计会被他们的互动伙伴更积极地感知，并且预计在与具有同质友谊网络的白人伙伴进行互动时会有更积极的互动体验。
这些发现表明，在其他具有身份威胁的互动情境中，学习目标可以减轻黑人个体的威胁，从而为未来的积极跨种族接触打开大门，即使在具有挑战性的跨种族互动情境中也是如此。
