On Monday, November 18, 2024, Dr. Caroline Erentzen, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University, presented her talk, ““The Role of Privilege and Marginalization in Intersectional Invisibility.” at the SP Colloquium Brownbag.
You can find more information about Dr. Erentzen's work here and her abstract below:
Abstract:
This research broadly explored intersectional invisibility, assessing identity assumptions made when stereotyping groups as well as the consequences of multiple marginalization on a recall task. In Studies 1-3, we demonstrate that Muslim stereotypes are very closely aligned with stereotypes of Muslim Men, with substantial overlap in ascribed traits and similarity evaluations. Muslim women, however, were considered dissimilar from both their gender and religious superordinate identities, suggesting a particular non-prototypicality and invisibility. Such gendered differences were not observed for Christian stereotypes, which evenly reflected both Christian men and Christian women. These results indicate that religion (like race) may be gendered. We then explored the consequences of intersectional invisibility based on gender, race, and older age status, with consideration of the perceiver’s identity in the invisibility process. Across Studies 4-7, Black and East Asian targets were recalled less accurately than White targets, but only by White participants. Black and East Asian participants did not show a bias in recalling targets by race. The effect of target age varied in relation to target race, such that Black and East Asian targets paid an old age penalty that White targets did not. These results point to participant identity as a potential moderator of intersectional invisibility, and suggest that it may be more prevalent among privileged observers. This research also underscores the importance of recruiting participant samples with racial and gender diversity.