Title: The effects of patronizing and marginalizing minority groups
Headings: Marginalization: The pendulum swings both ways
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Marginalization: The pendulum swings both ways
By Dr. Nathaniel Granger
Recommended read: “ Embodied racism”
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Content: In fact, according to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, male bosses who patronized their female employees undermined their performance. The bosses patronized the women workers by offering them excessive praise but no “valued resources” such as raises or promotions. “The patronizing behavior of male bosses created gender differences in performance where they otherwise did not exist,” said Theresa Vescio, a Penn State University assistant professor of psychology who led the study. Perhaps the most damaging form of patronization is that of excessive praise to select members of marginalized groups. This not only undermines the group from which the recipient of the praise is from but also alienates the representative of that group by singling out him or her. This consequently leads to shame, embarrassment, and more often than not disconnectedness from one’s group, which in turn perpetuates the familiar emotion of feeling invisible within and without one’s given group. It is my premise that because these attitudes often lie outside the consciousness of many well-intended people who consider themselves to be nonbiased, an attempt by such to compensate/overcorrect leads to the pendulum that swings in the direction toward oppression and ostracization to swing opposingly toward patronization. As well-intended, non-disenfranchised groups endeavor to make marginalized groups feel less marginalized by incorporating adequate representation, one must be mindful not to make the representative an “expert” on that particular group’s cultural affairs or patronize the representative by giving excessive praise. Hence, this too becomes ma