This thesis describes a program of research aimed at examining the social psychological consequences of being a victim of discrimination. An experimental paradigm was developed to determine if, and to what extent, disadvantaged group members perceive the discrimination that confronts them. Women were asked to react to negative feedback after receiving information about the probability that they had been discriminated against. When discrimination was made ambiguous, subjects minimized their personal experience with discrimination and attributed their failure to themselves. A second experiment investigated the role of perceived control as a potential cause of minimization of personal discrimination. The results indicated that disadvantaged group members were reluctant to blame their performance on discrimination because in so doing, they were placing control for their outcomes in the hands of others rather than themselves. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the on-going victimization of disadvantaged group members.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.26076 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Ruggiero, Karen M. |
| Contributors | Taylor, Donald M. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001383440, proquestno: MM91772, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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