Not For Me: People Are Less Willing To Help Asians Who Explicitly State Their Identity

Authors:

Abstract: This paper investigates how the strategy of making explicit a minority identity hurts East Asians. While past research has found that highlighting one’s racial identity increases helping behavior toward Black and Latino people, this study theorizes that this effect could be different for East Asians because they hold ambiguous identities with both positive and negative stereotypes, and hence are more likely to elicit threat and reactance when they mention their identity. In a pre-registered experiment, we reveal that people are less willing to help an East Asian highlighting their identities as compared to not in a leadership context, and are less warm in their communications toward the East Asian target. This research challenges past work on disclosing minority identities by unveiling how a strategy benefiting certain racial groups backfires for other groups. It also highlights the importance of examining the unique experience of identities with ambiguous signals of disadvantage.

Track: DEI

Keywords: race, identity, helping