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Physical segregation impedes psychological integration: scene inconsistency increases prejudice against minority groups

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Abstract

Scene inconsistency is known to impair cognitive performance. We extended this line of inquiry to the field of intergroup relations, and examined the effect of scene inconsistency on prejudice. We conceptualized members of a subordinate ethnic group in their original sociocultural context as a consistent scene, and their appearance in a dominant ethnic group’s host sociocultural context as an inconsistent scene. Under the context of the intergroup dynamic between Han Chinese and Tibetan Chinese, four experiments were conducted to confirm that scene inconsistency increases prejudice, Specifically, when Tibetan Chinese were associated with the context of Han (versus Tibetan) Chinese, Han Chinese participants were less willing to interact with (Experiment 1), expressed greater social distance from (Experiment 2), and less willingness to hire Tibetan Chinese (Experiment 3). Furthermore, Experiment 4 provided a cognitive strategy to buffer the negative influence of scene inconsistency on intergroup relations, revealing the moderating role of comparative thinking.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/vcbda/.

Notes

  1. The city of Lhasa has been the religious and administrative capital of Tibet since the mid-seventeenth century; about 70% of the population is Tibetan.

  2. Gyatso is a Tibetan Chinese name.

  3. Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong Province, where the proportion of Han Chinese exceeds 97%.

  4. As suggested by Steiger (2004), 90% CIs would be more appropriate for η2 (and R2). The 90% CI does exclude zero, but barely; a 95% CI would include zero. Furthermore, η2 (and R2) cannot be less than zero. Accordingly, Steiger argued that when putting a CI on an ANOVA effect that has been tested with the traditional 0.05 criterion of significance, that CI should be a 90% CI, not a 95% CI.

  5. Jinan is the capital of Shandong Province, where the proportion of Han Chinese exceeds 99% of the population.

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Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial supports provided by the Major Project of National Social Science Foundation of China (18ZDA332), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31600912), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University (2019NTSS30). The funders had no role in study design, data collection, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology and Sociology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China

    Xiaoxiao Zhang

  2. Department of Management, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

    Xian Zhao

  3. Beijing Key Lab of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, 19 Xinjiekouwai Street, Beijing, 100875, China

    Jianning Dang & Li Liu

  4. Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Jianning Dang

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  1. Xiaoxiao Zhang
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Correspondence to Jianning Dang.

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Zhang, X., Zhao, X., Dang, J. et al. Physical segregation impedes psychological integration: scene inconsistency increases prejudice against minority groups. Curr Psychol 41, 5849–5858 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01085-5

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