Framing Intergroup Inequality as Structural Improves White American Support for Equity-Enhancing Policy

Economic inequality harms the majority of Americans, yet psychological processes can hinder White Americans’ recognition of its racial patterning and structural causes, which has implications for support of equity-enhancing policies. We hypothesized that making the racial components of inequality salient would, all else equal, decrease White Americans’ support for policies aimed at ensuring economic equality. However, we also hypothesized that providing context for racial inequality, by highlighting its structural causes, would increase White Americans’ support for policies aimed at ensuring economic equality. Though the individual study results were idiosyncratic, these hypotheses were supported in a meta-analysis across two experiments (N1 = 873; N2 = 756) that manipulated both the racial salience of inequality and the provision of structural context. The studies indicate that intergroup concerns among White Americans can impede efforts to address inequality, but contextualizing racial inequality as structurally-derived can help to overcome such obstacles.