# Study: belief in the meritocracy leads to worse outcomes **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 27, 2017, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262 "2017-07-27T13:40:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2017, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/61 "2017-08-07T12:07:07Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > From my experience many black teachers will reinforce the idea that every white person is out to get them (backed up with plenty of stories). I used to work with several teachers like this. What exactly were they saying that makes you think this? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2017, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/62 "2017-08-07T22:11:05Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > What exactly were they saying that makes you think this? I worked at a school that was about 90% black students and about 50% black teachers. Occasionally a black teacher would outright tell a white kid they were born with advantages or privileges. It was more of the overall attitude. Like only acknowledging black leaders (ex. on womens history month - only black women). Constantly going on about how blacks were mistreated by whites. The worse I saw was during black history month, the students wrote essays. The winners were to be acknowledged in an assembly attended by black civic leaders. Problem was when they were graded the winners were all white kids. They canceled the public acknowledgement. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/63 "2017-08-08T12:33:53Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I worked at a school that was about 90% black students and about 50% black teachers. > > Occasionally a black teacher would outright tell a white kid they were born with advantages or privileges. It was more of the overall attitude. Like only acknowledging black leaders (ex. on womens history month - only black women). Constantly going on about how blacks were mistreated by whites. > > The worse I saw was during black history month, the students wrote essays. The winners were to be acknowledged in an assembly attended by black civic leaders. Problem was when they were graded the winners were all white kids. They canceled the public acknowledgement. I had a sort of similar experience in college, in an educational psychology class. The idea was to show that IQ/achievement tests were biased, so they gave us a test that was biased in favor of black culture. All the white students in the class did better than the black students in the class. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/64 "2017-08-08T21:41:11Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I had a sort of similar experience in college, in an educational psychology class. The idea was to show that IQ/achievement tests were biased, so they gave us a test that was biased in favor of black culture. All the white students in the class did better than the black students in the class. > > Regards, > Shodan Wow, how did they react? To think that the white kids knew more black slang and culture. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/65 "2017-08-09T12:48:25Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Wow, how did they react? They sort of laughed nervously, and changed the subject. It was one of the first steps in the evolution of my thinking about affirmative action. If the idea is that groups under-achieve in school, because school doesn’t talk about things that are part of their culture, then why would they under-achieve on things that are part of their culture? Maybe the problem isn’t just that black kids wouldn’t know what a “[regatta](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/222930/speaking-unspeakable-john-derbyshire)” is on their SAT, which is another example that got thrown around a lot. This is only a couple of anecdotes, of course. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/66 "2017-08-09T21:52:50Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > They sort of laughed nervously, and changed the subject. > > It was one of the first steps in the evolution of my thinking about affirmative action. If the idea is that groups under-achieve in school, because school doesn’t talk about things that are part of their culture, then why would they under-achieve on things that are part of their culture? Maybe the problem isn’t just that black kids wouldn’t know what a “[regatta](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/222930/speaking-unspeakable-john-derbyshire)” is on their SAT, which is another example that got thrown around a lot. > > This is only a couple of anecdotes, of course. > > Regards, > Shodan Another one I remember was “matching” question which had the answer “cup matches with saucer”. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/67 "2017-08-09T23:05:46Z")
Anyway, returning to the subject of the thread - > [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I would want to look at the school the kids in the study came from … > > … Also when the kids gave their responses to questions, were those teachers present? Did the kids say things just to please their teachers? As was pointed out to me, the article was linked to in post #35. Information as requested. > [@](#): > > Data were collected from an urban middle > school in the U.S. Southwest. Teachers and staff at > the school were largely White, but the student body > was racially/ethnically diverse, with the largest > group being Latina/o (53.2%). Eighty-one percent > of the student body was categorized as economically > disadvantaged … Although students > in the school were diverse, the area in which they > live is largely White, and there was significant > social/ > political unrest at the time of data collection concerning > policies targeting immigrant families. … > > \ > > … At each wave of data collection, participants completed > questionnaires, administered during two class > periods (approximately 90 min total) on two consecutive > days deemed least disruptive by instructional > staff. Trained researchers read aloud each item to > ease comprehension, but students marked their > responses privately on their own surveys. Research > assistants also walked around the classroom while > students completed the survey to provide individual > assistance when needed. We took extra steps to > ensure students’ privacy and minimize issues concerning > social desirability. Students were asked to sit > as far away from one another as possible, and a card > was provided for students to cover their responses > while completing the survey. … Does that information inform your opinion at all? In what way and why? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/68 "2017-08-10T12:32:15Z")
I tried to read the study, but I still can’t tell if the researchers claim that believing that life is fair led to better outcomes, worse outcomes, or the same outcomes, as never believing it. Is it “pessimists are never disappointed”, or “it doesn’t matter if the glass is half full or half empty because you are never going to drink out of the glass” or “winners never quit and quitters never win”? IOW I see no indication that the title of the OP is accurate. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/69 "2017-08-10T15:29:32Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I tried to read the study, but I still can’t tell if the researchers claim that believing that life is fair led to better outcomes, worse outcomes, or the same outcomes, as never believing it. … None of the above. At least not for all groups. The premise is that those who are of “marginalized” status who believe they or their group _deserve_ that status will be worse off. The context of their study is that in “marginalized adults, including racial/ethnic minorities and the poor, system-justifying beliefs are associated with lower self-esteem and higher depressive and anxious symptoms”. The premise is that “[s]ystem justification theory proposes that believing the system is fair involves accepting that one and one’s social group deserve a marginalized place in society, which leads to negative well-being outcomes.” Thus they “hypothesize that sixth-grade system-justifying beliefs will be associated with worse outcomes in sixth grade (lower self-esteem, higher internalizing behavior, more deviant behavior, and less classroom behavioral regulation) as well as worsening trajectories of these outcomes over the course of middle school.” The study instead found that what they defined as system-justifying beliefs in sixth-grade (beliefs that to some degree were as based in observed reality as is Santa Claus) was associated with higher self-esteem and less deviant behavior in sixth grade and that those kids lost some (how much? not said) of that relatively higher self-esteem over middle school on average, while those without what they defined as system-justifying beliefs in sixth-grade who started out lower in self-esteem and higher in self-report deviant behavior improved some on average (also unclear by how much. So the study straight-forwardly falsified their first prediction: Santa Clausish “self-justification beliefs” as defined were instead associated with higher self-reported self-esteem and fewer self-reported deviant behaviors in sixth grade. And while the data provided is consistent with the second portion of their hypothesis it is also consistent with the simpler hypothesis: 6th graders’ self-reports of self-esteem and deviant behaviors are not highly correlated with reports of the same in 8th grade (thus sixth grade higher scorers will on average have a trajectory down to average and those with lower scores will on average have a trajectory up to average over the two years. But clearly agreed that there is no indication that the title of the OP is accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/70 "2017-08-10T15:49:15Z")
Thanks, **DSeid**. You are a lot better than I am at reading academic-ese. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/71 "2017-08-10T15:54:25Z")
If the title was inaccurate, apologies – I was attempting to paraphrase the description in the article I linked to. I still haven’t been able to actually look at the study yet. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262/72 "2017-08-10T16:39:50Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If the title was inaccurate, apologies – I was attempting to paraphrase the description in the article I linked to. I still haven’t been able to actually look at the study yet. It reads as desperately trying to spin what they found into fitting their hypothesis after the fact but your op take-away reasonably fits how the linked _Atlantic_ article (misleadingly) portrays it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/study-belief-in-the-meritocracy-leads-to-worse-outcomes/792262.md?page=3)