Race, Poverty, and Mainstream Financial Programs: The Role of Collective Salient Identity in Buffering the Adverse Effects of Stigma

Abstract

Many suboptimal behaviors are observed to not only be characteristic of the poor but also perpetuate their unfortunate economic standing. Present research acknowledges that low‐income individuals engage in such behaviors of their own volition. Rather than attributing maladaptive behaviors to dispositional shortcomings inherent amongst the poor, I consider that they can be attributed to cumbersome situational factors (e.g. stereotype threat), which influence one’s salient collective identity (i.e. a mechanism with the capacity to guide choice and behavior). While the lower class, in general, experience welfare stigma, low-‐income African Americans are targets of both welfare stigma and racial stereotypes. Thus, they may experience the adverse effects of stereotype all the more frequently. That being said, the current study aims to investigate how targeting collective salient identity through self-‐affirmations and exposure to ingroup role models can buffer stigmatized individuals against stereotype threat. Consequently, they may be better equipped to lift themselves from poverty through proper use of financial programs. In the current study, participants were primed for stereotype threat or exposed to ingroup role models. Subsequently, some participants then completed a self-‐affirmation intervention. Though the sample size was too small to yield statistical significance, results showed promising patterns suggesting affirmation interventions and exposure to ingroup role models may increase the likelihood that participants would avail themselves of benefits programs.