Cheek Nathan N, Murray Jackson
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2025 May;51(5):794-807. doi: 10.1177/01461672231202756. Epub 2023 Oct 21.
People often falsely believe that individuals from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are less harmed than those from higher SES backgrounds by a wide range of negative events. We report three studies (total = 1,625) that provide evidence that this "thick skin bias" emerges at least in part because people overgeneralize otherwise accurate intuitions about adaptation. Across studies, participants accurately intuited that people adapt to psychophysical experiences (e.g., brightness, weight, and volume) but also inaccurately intuited that people similarly adapt to life hardships that actually tend to the harm of future negative events. Experimentally decreasing the salience of psychophysical adaptation intuitions reduced the thick skin bias, suggesting a causal link between these adaptation intuitions and the belief that people in poverty are less vulnerable to harm and underlining the importance of studying how biased beliefs about the effects of poverty may perpetuate inequality.
人们常常错误地认为，与社会经济地位较高的人相比，社会经济地位较低的人受到各种负面事件的伤害更小。我们报告了三项研究（总计1625人），这些研究提供了证据表明，这种“厚脸皮偏见”至少部分是因为人们过度概括了关于适应的准确直觉。在各项研究中，参与者准确地直觉到人们会适应心理物理体验（如亮度、重量和体积），但也不准确地直觉到人们同样会适应生活中的艰难困苦，而实际上这些艰难困苦往往会加剧未来负面事件的危害。通过实验降低心理物理适应直觉的显著性，减少了厚脸皮偏见，这表明这些适应直觉与贫困人群不易受到伤害的信念之间存在因果联系，并强调了研究关于贫困影响的偏见信念如何使不平等长期存在的重要性。
