Invisibility of Social Privilege to Those Who Have It
The U.S. faces deep social divides, with socially dominant and subordinate groups clashing in their views about how much privilege the former enjoys and hardship the latter endures. We suggest that these differences arise because privilege is invisible to those who have it. Compared to disadvantaged groups, socially dominant groups are hypocognitive of privilege, having only sparse cognitive representations of the concept. This deficit leads to poor cognitive performance when thinking about privilege and predicts group differences in privilege awareness and beliefs about the prevalence of discrimination. Across 8 studies, participants from advantaged groups showed cognitive signatures of hypocognition. Right-handers generated fewer handedness- related hassles than left-handers (Study 1). Men generated fewer instances of gender discrimination than women, recalled fewer previously presented items describing actions people take to defend themselves against violence, and showed poorer recall and recognition in memory of gender discrimination examples described in a TEDx talk (Studies 2a-2c). Whites generated fewer racial discrimination instances than Blacks and recalled fewer such instances from a presented list (Studies 3a-3b). Whites also generated fewer examples of racial discrimination than Asians and reacted more slowly when classifying examples as discriminatory behavior (Study 4). After watching a transgender woman describe her discrimination experience living as a woman, both men and women showed increased awareness of male privilege and gender discrimination (Study 5). Findings suggest that the invisibility of one’s privilege need not solely reflect identity-defensive motivations, but may also stem from cognitive deficits in conceptual knowledge about privilege and discrimination.