Research Symposium

BIO

Will Haag is a current freshman at Florida State University, and is majoring in finance and looking to add another major/minor. Will is on the Presidential Scholars Service Board, involved in the Honors program through Honors Student Association and Honors in Action, and completed the Freshman Leadership Institute program. In high school, Will earned his International Baccalaureate Diploma, giving him a strong foundation for the UROP Program at FSU, due to its focus on research, writing, and real-world applicability. Will is interested in attending law school after graduation.

To Acknowledge or Deny Systemic Power Differentials: A Motivational Perspective 

Abstract

The research focuses on whether and why people perceive existing structures, such as laws, the legal and education system, and government influence power differentials between groups. The current work investigates the psychological mechanisms that underlie whether people acknowledge or deny the presence of inequality through the lens of systemic racism. In our work, we gather open-ended responses on participants’ views of whether differences exist in equal opportunities such as employment, education, and the legal system. Of key interest is whether respondents’ motivations (Plant & Devine, 1998; Internal and External motivations to respond without prejudice) determine how participants respond to the questionnaires. We used an acknowledgement and denial coding rubric to score participants’ responses on the extent to which they acknowledge and/or deny the existence of a stated power differential. While data collection is still ongoing, we predict that if a participant is more internally motivated to respond without prejudice (due to their personal views), they will be more likely to acknowledge structural inequality. In contrast, people who are high in external motivation (focused on how others will view them) will be more likely to deny or use ambiguous (mixed) responses that both acknowledge and deny. We seek to demonstrate the ways in which motivational factors inform the perceived realities of structural inequality.

Keywords: Psychology, legal system, systemic, power differential