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The Personal/Group Discrimination Discrepancy

Perceiving My Group, but not Myself, to be a Target for Discrimination

McGill University

Stephen C. Wright

McGill University

Fathali M. Moghaddam

McGill University

Richard N. Lalonde

York University

An unexpected finding that has surfaced in research on discrimination is that respondents perceive a higher level of discrimination directed at their group as a whole than at themselves as individual members of that group. The present study directly tested this personal/group discrepancy by focusing on two groups of Canadian immigrants who have been the targets of much discrimination, Haitian and South Asian women. Respondents were questioned about their personal and group discrimination on four separate dimensions: race, culture, status as newcomers to Canada, and gender Strong support was found for the generality of the personal/group discrimination discrepancy. Three possible explanations for the discrepancy point to possible avenues for future research: the denial of personal discrimination, the exaggeration of group discrimination, and information-processing biases.

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