People in marginalized groups are less likely to accurately remember the extent of discrimination they have suffered in the past when conditions improve for other members of their groups even if these conditions don't improve for themselves, according to University of Alberta research.
In a study published late last year in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Tito Grillo of the Alberta School of Business and marketing PhD candidate Shuhan Yang found that workplace and societal advancements in fair treatment based on race and gender "may change how some perceive their own prior experiences with discrimination, leading them to see these experiences as having been fairer."
The study is partly based on previous research on "memory malleability," says Grillo, showing that "every time we remember the past, we remember it with a bias based on the present."
