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Using an egalitarian social norms message to improve attitudes toward diversity in an academic context: examining intended and unintended effects of source and recipient gender

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Abstract

Social psychologists have leveraged social norms messaging about prejudice to improve social climates. Less research, however, has explored how social identities of message sources and recipients (e.g., gender) influence receptivity to these messages. Testing for the effects of source and recipient social identity on message receptivity is not just of theoretical importance, but also has practical implications for who can effectively deliver such messages and whether such messages have unintended negative consequences for disadvantaged group members. In the present research, an experimental design explored whether the effectiveness of an egalitarian social norms message (compared to a control message) depended on source gender, recipient gender, and their interaction, as well as whether the egalitarian social norms message had unintended negative consequences for participants. Results of an experiment with undergraduate participants (N = 434) showed that receiving an egalitarian social norms message (compared to a control message) resulted in more positive diversity attitudes and stronger intentions to confront prejudice, and these effects did not depend on source gender. The egalitarian social norms message, compared to the control message, did not have detrimental effects on members of socially disadvantaged groups, and was evaluated as more beneficial for social climate. Implications for intervention are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Ratings of the speaker’s effectiveness were assessed as a potential covariate. Eight items were used: “During the presentation, I thought that the speaker was…” for the following: likeable, warm, trustworthy, competent, an expert on the subject, confident, credible, and an excellent speaker (1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree). The eight items were highly intercorrelated (Cronbach’s α = .91) and collapsed into a single measure. Results did not significantly change when including speaker effectiveness ratings as a covariate, and thus, the below results are reported without this covariate.

  2. When speaker gender was included in this analysis, two four-way interactions emerged. The first was an interaction among video condition, speaker gender, potential benefits, and target type (racial minority vs. female students, as the within-subjects factor) (F(1, 413) = 5.75, p = .02). Cell means revealed that among participants who did not strongly endorse the potential benefits, only those who heard a male speaker rated the intervention video as sending a worse message relative to the control video, and only in regard to racial minority (not female) students. No difference emerged among those who more strongly endorsed the potential benefits. The second interaction was among video condition, speaker gender, participant gender, and potential benefits, F(1, 413) = 4.32, p = .04). Cell means revealed that among those who did not strongly endorse the potential benefits, only female participants who heard a male speaker rated the intervention video as sending a worse message to women and minorities than the control video; no difference emerged among participants who strongly endorsed the potential benefits.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to SPRIG Lab at the University of Michigan for feedback and Amena Khan, Michael Hall, and Veronica Derricks for help with developing materials.

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This research was supported in part by the Department of Psychology and Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Izzy Gainsburg & Denise Sekaquaptewa

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  1. Izzy Gainsburg
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Correspondence to Izzy Gainsburg or Denise Sekaquaptewa.

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Gainsburg, I., Sekaquaptewa, D. Using an egalitarian social norms message to improve attitudes toward diversity in an academic context: examining intended and unintended effects of source and recipient gender. Soc Psychol Educ 23, 1–26 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-019-09529-y

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