Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Statement
Tiffany
M.
Griffin,
PhD
Overview
Individuals
are
members
of
groups
that
shape
their
experiences,
how
they
are
perceived
and
treated
by
others,
as
well
as
their
social
outcomes.
My
research
builds
from
this
premise
to
investigate
the
pathways
by
which
discrimination,
or
systematically
biased
unfair
treatment,
creates
and
maintains
social
disparities.
In
my
first
line
of
research,
I
investigate
the
social
psychological
processes
that
lead
to
the
perpetration
of
unfair
treatment.
The
strength
in
examining
discrimination
perpetration
directly
lies
in
the
ability
to
bypass
claims
that
discrimination
persists
only
in
the
minds
of
the
perceiver.
In
my
second
line
of
research,
I
examine
the
influences
and
consequences
of
being
a
discrimination
target,
along
with
individual
difference
and
contextual
factors
that
mitigate
or
exacerbate
the
negative
association
between
discrimination
and
outcomes.
Together,
my
research
reflects
top-‐down,
as
well
as
bottom-‐up
approaches
to
informing
the
linkages
between
discrimination
and
social
disparities
(see
Figure
1).
Discrimination
Perpetration
as
a
Pathway
to
Social
Disparities
Previous
research.
Researchers
have
argued
that
over
and
above
interpersonal
bias,
institutional
discrimination
has
the
most
detrimental
effects
on
targets.
This
is
because
discrimination
that
occurs
on
more
macro
levels
(e.g.,
laws,
policies,
institutional
practices)
can
negatively
affect
large
numbers
of
people
and
is
often
perpetrated
without
the
ability
to
hold
one
specific
individual
accountable.
In
my
first
line
of
research,
I
position
systematically
biased
decision
making
(e.g.,
allocating
resources,
voting
behaviors)
as
a
bridge
between
individual
behaviors
and
institutional
discrimination.
In
my
dissertation
research,
I
used
this
theoretical
framework
to
investigate
racial
biases
when
decision
makers
are
instructed
to
allocate
resources
based
upon
non-‐racial
factors.
In
the
first
study,
participants
were
instructed
to
allocate
resources
based
upon
ostensible
targets’
gender
and
in
the
second
study,
participants
were
instructed
to
allocate
resources
based
upon
targets’
social
class.
In
both
experiments,
results
indicated
that
race
‘sneaks
in’
to
influence
how
resources
are
allocated,
even
when
decision
makers
are
instructed
to
focus
on
targets’
other
group
memberships.
Specifically,
White
women
were
given
three
times
more
resources
than
Black
women.
Moreover,
among
high
social
class
targets,
participants
were
more
likely
to
allocate
resources
to
Whites
than
to
Blacks.
Together,
these
results
have
practical
implications
for
contemporary
discrimination,
and
for
informing
social
disparities.
The
results
suggest,
for
instance,
that
White
women
may
be
favored
over
Black
and
other
women
of
color
for
intervention
programs
designed
to
increase
the
representation
of
underrepresented
females
in
education
and
employment
programs.
In
this
way,
the
very
programs
designed
to
ameliorate
gender
disparities
between
women
and
men,
may
inadvertently
create
disparities
between
White
women
and
women
of
color.
Additionally,
the
results
support
research
on
discrimination
experiences
among
the
Black
middle
class,
which
has
shown
that
higher
status
Blacks
often
report
more
discrimination
than
their
lower
status
counterparts.
The
findings
from
my
dissertation
suggest
that,
at
least
in
some
instances,
such
reports
are
not
just
the
result
of
Blacks
perceiving
more
discrimination,
but
that
discrimination
is
actually
perpetuated
against
them
more
vehemently.
Current/future
research.
My
immediate
next
step
in
this
line
of
research
is
to
explore
the
mechanisms
that
produce
biases
against
Black
women
and
high
class
Blacks.
During
my
postdoctoral
tenure,
I
have
conducted
experiments
to
accomplish
this
objective.
Results
showed,
for
instance,
that
implicit,
but
not
explicit
racial
prejudice,
moderates
the
bias
against
higher
status
Blacks
(Griffin
&
Payne,
under
review).
By
synthesizing
discrimination
and
psychological
social
cognition
literatures,
I
was
thus
able
to
ascertain
that
these
biases
are
produced,
in
part,
by
individually
held
negative
feelings
towards
Blacks
that
are
managed
explicitly,
but
that
seep
into
behaviors
nonetheless.
I
am
also
conducting
a
set
of
experiments
that
test
two
conflicting
potential
mechanisms
for
bias
against
Black
females
(Griffin,
Payne,
&
Brown,
in
prep.).
On
the
one
hand,
intersectionality
invisibility
research
argues
that
biases
likely
manifest
because
decision
makers
overlook
Black
women,
given
their
gender
and
racial
atypicality.
On
the
other
hand,
norm
theory
would
suggest
that
because
Black
women
are
atypical,
they
are
rendered
hypervisible,
which
leads
them
to
biases
because
they
are
more
stringently
scrutinized.
Each
mechanism
is
probable,
yet
would
warrant
different
interventions.
As
such,
understanding
when
each
process
is
the
best
predictor
of
bias
can
lead
to
practices
that
mitigate
bias
and
reduce
disparities
over
time.
Additionally,
I
am
working
on
paradigms
to
extend
these
research
findings,
which
have
focused
on
the
higher
education
domain,
to
special
education,
medical,
and
criminal
justice
decision-‐making.
Second,
inherent
to
my
work
is
the
notion
that
discrimination
should
be
examined
within
an
intersectionality
framework.
Broadly
speaking,
intersectionality
argues
that
individuals’
multiple
group
memberships
work
multiplicatively
to
influence
their
outcomes.
Despite
being
prominent
in
the
Humanities
and
more
qualitatively-‐oriented
social
sciences,
intersectionality
has
been
resisted
heavily
by
social
scientists
who
employ
quantitative
methods.
As
such,
my
additional
current/future
directions
include
theoretical
research
on
intersectionality
as
the
paradigm
pertains
to
quantitatively-‐oriented
investigations
of
social
group
processes
(Griffin,
in
prep.),
as
well
as
the
development
of
a
set
of
methodological
‘best
practices’
for
quantitative
researchers
who
seek
to
synthesize
intersectionality
with
their
current
research
agendas
(Griffin,
Jackson,
Gonzalez,
&
Destin,
in
prep.).
Experiences
as
a
Pathway
to
Social
Disparities
Previous
research.
Independent
of
whether,
‘actual’
discrimination
has
occurred,
the
perception
that
one
has
been
or
may
be
the
target
of
unfair
treatment
can
elicit
responses
that
lead
to
negative
outcomes.
Over
time,
this
can
create
disparities
between
those
who
must
chronically
manage
the
potential
for
negative
experiences
and
those
individuals
with
more
social
privilege.
My
second
line
of
research
thus
examines
how
individuals’
responses
to
unfair
experiences
lead
to
disparities
between
groups.
First,
collaborators
and
I
have
investigated
how
the
negative
effect
of
discrimination
on
academic
outcomes
is
moderated
by
Black
college
students’
racial
identity
beliefs
(Chavous,
Branch,
Cogburn,
Griffin,
Maddox,
&
Sellers,
2007;
Griffin,
Chavous,
Cogburn,
&
Sellers,
revise
and
resubmit).
Additionally,
my
research
has
investigated
how
social
class
solo
status
(e.g.,
tokenism)
leads
one
to
evaluate
the
intergroup
context
in
ways
that
produce
unique
outcomes
for
female
and
male
students
(Griffin,
Sekaquaptewa,
Mowbray,
&
Bennett,
under
review).
Current/future
directions.
My
current
and
future
endeavors
in
this
area
are
to
focus
on
the
psychological
and
contextual
factors
that
foster
resilience
to
unfair
experiences
related
to
one’s
social
group
memberships.
Specifically,
I
am
currently
the
principal
investigator
for
a
longitudinal
study
examining
the
influences
of
dispositional
and
racial
positivity
on
the
association
between
discrimination
and
mental
health.
In
this
study,
data
are
being
collected
from
three
hundred
Black
college
freshmen
at
three
time
points
to
examine
a
theory
of
“bounded
positivity.”
My
hypothesis
is
that,
for
racial
discrimination
targets,
positivity
has
a
curvilinear
moderating
effect
on
the
association
between
discrimination
and
outcomes.
I
posit
that
very
low
positivity
and
very
high
positivity
lead
to
the
worst
mental
health
outcomes,
but
bounded
positivity
(e.g.,
moderate
levels)
facilitates
mental
health.
This
research
has
the
potential
to
inform
general
mental
health
literature,
as
well
as
to
growing
research
on
the
benefits
of
positivity
for
health
and
other
social
outcomes.
Importantly,
this
research
also
suggests
that
the
process
by
which
positivity
influences
social
outcomes,
inherently
depends
on
the
status
and
power
afforded
by
one’s
social
group
memberships.
This
not
only
is
theoretically
relevant,
but
also
has
practical
implications
for
interventions
designed
to
ameliorate
disparities
between
social
groups.
Conclusion
Until
all
differences
can
be
explained
by
individual
differences,
there
will
be
a
need
to
identify
the
pathways
by
which
discrimination
produces
and
reproduces
disparities
over
time.
My
research
investigates
these
pathways
in
two
ways—by
examining
actual
perpetration
of
discrimination
and
by
exploring
the
psychological
experiences
of
unfair
treatment.
Both
lines
of
research
are
guided
by
the
following
assumptions:
a)
disparities
ought
to
be
understood
within
an
intersectionality
context,
b)
social
group
memberships
imply
status
and
power
processes,
c)
context
matters,
d)
understanding
process
is
part
and
parcel
of
informing
social
problems,
e)
theoretical
advancement
is
necessary
for
empirical
rigor,
and
f)
multidisciplinarity,
multiple
methods,
and
collaboration
facilitate
the
most
powerful
research
investigations.
Social
disparities
are
literally
a
matter
of
life
and
death;
and
I
see
conducting
rigorous,
theoretically-‐driven
research
as
doing
my
part
to
positively
affect
lives.
Figure
1
Guiding
Framework
for
my
Research
Agenda