Stigmatized individuals protect self-esteem by disengaging from feedback in negatively stereotyped domains

Evidence

Although some targets of prejudice enhance their striving in response to prejudice, others withdraw their efforts from domains in which they are negatively stereotyped, devalued, or unfairly treated. Withdrawal of effort is likely to be one byproduct of psychologically disengaging self-esteem from a domain (Major et al., 1998). Psychological disengagement refers to detaching self-esteem from external feedback in a domain such that feelings of self-worth are not dependent on successes or failures in that domain (Major et al., 1998). One method of disengaging self-esteem from a domain is to discount the validity of feedback received in that domain; a second method is to devalue or reduce the importance in one’s self-concept of a domain in which one is stigmatized. … Consistent with this process, African Americans’ self-esteem is affected less than that of European Americans by feedback on intelligence tests when race is salient, but not when it is not salient (Major et al., 1998). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 966

Categorization

• DEFINE: Provides the technical definition of psychological disengagement and its two mechanisms (discounting feedback validity, devaluing the domain).
• XREF: Pays into the vault’s prejudice-psychology claims on how targets cope; race-salience as a moderator echoes contact-theory conditions. — connects to: Self-esteem operates implicitly through self-serving judgment biases that also buttress the self. — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 152; Affiliation and rejection behaviors function as second-order boosts to self-esteem. — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 162; Similarity-attraction functions as an implicit shield for self-esteem — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 165
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 966