The hard-knock life? Whites claim hardships in response to racial inequity

Racial inequity continues to plague America, yet many Whites still doubt the existence of racial advantages, limiting progress and cooperation. What happens when people are faced with evidence that their group benefits from privilege? We suggest such evidence will be threatening and that people will claim hardships to manage this threat. These claims of hardship allow individuals to deny that they personally benefit from privilege, while still accepting that group-level inequity exists. Experiments 1a and 1b show that Whites exposed to evidence of racial privilege claim to have suffered more personal life hardships than those not exposed to evidence of privilege. Experiment 2 shows that self-affirmation reverses the effect of exposure to evidence of privilege on hardship claims, implicating the motivated nature of hardship claims. Further, affirmed participants acknowledge more personal privilege, which is associated with increased support for inequity-reducing policies. •We explore why and how Whites deny the existence of racial privilege•We introduce belief in personal privilege as important to psychology of privilege•When given privilege evidence, Whites claim more life hardships•Whites use hardship claims to deny personally benefitting from privilege•Self-affirmed Whites acknowledge personal privilege and support equality policies