Evaluating the social cost: The mention of diversity and group identification moderate responses to high‐status ingroup claims of bias

Abstract

Claims of discrimination made by high‐status groups (e.g., White people, men) have become increasingly more common. To understand ingroup support for such claims, we examined perceivers’ group identification (GID) and perceived social costs as contributing factors. In addition, we examined the impact of the claimant blaming 'diversity' as a source of discrimination to see if this may influence perceptions of social costs and ultimately support. Across three experiments, we found that GID predicted support for the claimant among Whites and men when the claim blamed diversity, which was mediated by perceptions of group‐level social costs, suggesting that mentioning diversity as part of their claim may influence support for the claimant. We found similar patterns of results for liking and behavioral intentions. Results suggest that it is important to examine aspects of the claim and perceivers’ perceptions of social costs when examining support for discrimination claimants.