Targeting Prejudice: Personal Self-Esteem as a Resource for Asians’ Attributions to Racial Discrimination

Although Asians in the United States are targets of racial prejudice and discrimination, cultural forces may hinder their acknowledging that such bias has occurred. High personal self-esteem (SE) may facilitate acknowledging discrimination—which is costly yet necessary to remedy unfair treatment—but the importance of personal SE for Asians has been questioned. This study investigated a novel question: Does high personal SE function as a psychological resource for Asians’ attributions to racial discrimination? Participants received negative performance feedback containing one of three levels of cues to a White evaluator’s prejudice (feedback only, less-clear cues, or more-clear cues). Participants with lower SE reported elevated attributions to discrimination only when cues were more clear, whereas participants with higher SE reported elevated attributions when any cues to prejudice were present. Results suggest that high personal SE serves as a psychological resource for Asian targets of prejudice, lowering the threshold for acknowledging discriminatory treatment.