University of Southern California



Status, Race and Money: The Impact of Racial Hierarchy on Willingness-to-PayAarti S. IvanicUniversity of San Diego Jennifer R. Overbeck and Joseph C. NunesUniversity of Southern CaliforniaAuthor NoteStudies 1 and 2 were part of the first author’s doctoral dissertation. Address correspondence to Aarti S. Ivanic, ivanic@sandiego.edu.AbstractA deeply entrenched status hierarchy exists between African-Americans and Caucasians whereby the former often are classified as lower status. Concurrently, African-Americans face marketplace discrimination whereby they are treated as inferior and poor. Because having and spending money signify status, we explore how African-Americans may elevate their willingness-to-pay for products in order to fulfill status needs. Studies 1 and 2 find that explicit activation of race leads some African-Americans to pay more compared with what they would otherwise pay and with Caucasians. Individual differences in perceived status disadvantage and racial identification moderate this result. Study 3 shows that an overt status threat (inferior treatment in a purchasing context) similarly leads African-Americans, but not Caucasians, to pay more. This research illustrates how African-Americans whose status is threatened use spending as a way to assert status.Keywords: status, race, stereotypes, money, willingness-to-payStatus affects one’s opportunities, relationships, and self-concept. Regardless of whether we choose to acknowledge it, society is vertically stratified on several dimensions (e.g., income, education, race) and status hierarchies persist. Status is defined as the prominence, respect, and influence that one holds in others’ eyes (Anderson, Srivastava, Beer, Spataro, & Chatman, 2006). Whether achieved (through merit) or endowed (through birth), status hierarchies are socially imposed, and manifested in the way certain groups are treated. Consequently, they affect how their members behave. In this research, we examine how the ingrained status hierarchy between African-Americans and Caucasians affects individuals’ spending behavior. Specifically, we explore whether, when, and why African-Americans may willingly pay more for products and services than they would otherwise, and more than Caucasians would pay.Historically, African-Americans have had lower endowed status than Caucasians, which has led to persistent discrimination (Thoits, 1991; Webster & Driskell, 1978). African-Americans are often stereotyped as being poor, lazy, and uneducated and thus treated as inferior (e.g., Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 1997). In the marketplace, African-Americans feel categorized as ‘low value’ customers because of the perception they cannot afford purchases at upscale stores (Ainscough & Motley, 2000; Lee, 2000) and frequently report being ‘skipped over’ by sales associates who serve Caucasian customers first. Past work has demonstrated that members of racial minorities respond by consuming status-related goods as a way of asserting status (Fontes & Fam, 2006; Lamont & Molnar, 2001). More generally, individuals purchase status-conveying products to restore a sense of power or repair self-integrity (Rucker & Galinsky, 2008, 2009; Sivanathan & Petit, 2010). Our argument goes beyond the consumption of status goods. We propose that paying more money itself constitutes a status-asserting strategy. Consequently, African-Americans may elevate their willingness-to-pay (henceforth, WTP) to negate perceptions of inferiority. We distinguish WTP from purchase likelihood. While consumers with a higher WTP are generally more likely to purchase a product at any given price, consumers with equivalent purchase likelihoods are not necessarily willing to pay equivalent sums. Hence, while African-Americans and Caucasians may report similar purchase intentions, African-Americans may exhibit a higher WTP in a deliberate attempt to assert status. The ability to spend money represents success, wealth, and social status (Goldberg & Lewis, 1978; Veblen, 1899). Spending money engenders feelings of equality because money begets respect from others (Goldberg & Lewis, 1978). In the early 1980s, the NAACP created “Black Dollar Days,” encouraging African-Americans to spend money to demonstrate economic parity with Caucasians and the strength of African-Americans’ purchasing power (Boyer, 1985). Our work documents how increasing WTP (for both status- and non-status-conveying products) can represent attempts by some African-Americans to assert their status, particularly those who are concerned their social standing is seen as inferior. This concern may arise from a chronic sense of status disadvantage or from explicit awareness of race (and associated low-status stereotypes). People do not spend their days cognizant of their race, but often find themselves in situations (e.g., being African-American in a predominantly Caucasian neighborhood) that make race salient (Lee, 2000). We propose that the manner in which race, or endowed status, is made salient will affect African-Americans’ WTP. Substantial research has studied the behavioral repercussions of how social identity is activated (cf. Wheeler & Petty, 2001). Stereotypes guide behavior in ambiguous contexts (Dunning & Sherman, 1997) such that individuals either confirm or disconfirm group-related stereotypes, depending on how they are activated (Dijksterhuis et al., 1998; Kray, Thompson, & Galinsky, 2001). When stereotypes are implicitly activated, the automatic response is to confirm the stereotype (Bargh & Pietromonaco, 1982; Devine, 1989; Moskowitz & Skurnik, 1999). With explicit activation, individuals become more mindful of the stereotype and may behave in stereotype inconsistent ways (Wheeler & Petty, 2001). Stereotype-inconsistency occurs primarily when the stereotype implicates a controllable behavior that the target is motivated to contradict (Fiske, 1989). For example, Kray and colleagues (2001) showed that women outperformed men on a negotiation task when explicitly reminded of their gender, and worse when implicitly reminded. Explicit activation led women to resist the stereotype that they were poor negotiators, by becoming more assertive; in contrast, implicit activation led them to confirm the stereotype (Martin, 1986). Similarly, we argue, when race is explicitly activated, African-Americans are reminded of the stereotype that they are poor and low status. Consequently, they elevate their WTP to fight against the stereotype and assert their status—particularly if they perceive themselves to be disadvantaged with regard to status. Conversely, implicit activation should lead African-Americans to decrease WTP, because implicit activation occurs outside awareness and thus does not prompt stereotype resistance. Not everyone considers race an important source of identity. Brewer and Silver (2000) suggest that a given social category (e.g., race, gender) is a more important source of identity for some individuals than others. The extent of category identification affects individuals’ self-evaluations, self-stereotyping, and behavior (Hall & Crisp, 2008; Schmader, 2002). We anticipate that individual differences in racial identification might moderate the effect of identity salience: Highly-identified African-Americans may feel a greater sense of pride in group membership, which may counteract societally-imposed low status and thus reduce their need to pay more to assert status (i.e., they pay less). We test our predictions in three studies. Study 1 demonstrates the differential effect of race salience on WTP for African-Americans versus Caucasians. One’s sense of perceived status disadvantage (henceforth, PSD) relative to others should heighten WTP, given the greater experience of threatened status. Conversely, stronger racial identification may lower WTP. Study 2 examines the moderating role of both PSD and racial identification on WTP. In Study 3, we show how, for African-Americans but not Caucasians, an overt status threat produces the same effect as making race explicitly salient in ambiguous situations, supporting our claim that African-Americans who feel disadvantaged use payment behavior as a way to assert status.Study 1: Race, Salience and Willingness-to-PayParticipants and DesignRespondents were 113 individuals (72% African-American, 53% men, Mage = 36 years) recruited in a Los Angeles shopping plaza by a Lebanese-American experimenter who appeared neither Caucasian nor African-American. Respondents participated in exchange for entry into a drawing for a prize worth $120. The study used a 2 (Race: African-American, Caucasian) x 3 (Race Salience: Explicit, Implicit, Control) between-subjects design. Race was appraised visually and confirmed by self-report. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of the three salience conditions. ProcedureRespondents in the explicit condition were told we were interested in individual perceptions of racial differences in behavior. We adapted our explicit manipulation from Cialdini, Wosinska, Dabul, Whetstone-Dion, and Heszen (1998). Participants received a list of 10 behaviors (e.g., drink domestic beer, enjoy gardening), and reported their opinion of whom the behavior best characterized. They circled ‘WA’ if the behavior was more characteristic of White Americans, ‘AA’ if more characteristic of African-Americans, or ‘ND’ if there was no difference1. The implicit salience manipulation was adapted from Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady (1999). Respondents were told we were interested in how people’s self-perceptions affect their behaviors. They received a list of 10 stereotypical African-American behaviors (e.g., low performance on an academic test; high athletic ability) and circled Yes or No to indicate whether the behavior was self-characteristic2. This procedure implicitly primed awareness of race. In the control condition, we used the same list of behaviors as in the explicit condition. However, respondents reported whether the behaviors were more characteristic of Los Angeles residents (‘LA’), California residents excluding Los Angeles (‘CA’), or no difference (‘ND’). All respondents viewed a picture and description of high-end noise-canceling headphones. They reported the amount they were willing to pay for the headphones. To ensure there was no racial bias in product attractiveness, respondents were asked how likely (1 = not at all, 7 = very much) they would be to purchase the headphones. We predicted no difference between African-Americans’ and Caucasians’ purchase likelihood.To confirm that African-American participants believed they rank lower, on average, than Caucasians in the social hierarchy, participants were shown a picture of a vertical thermometer with lines indicating 0 to 100, in 10% intervals. Participants circled which line best represented their rank relative to others in society. They also reported their age, income and gender. Results and DiscussionPerceived RankAfrican-Americans (M = 52.12%, SE = 2.32%) reported ranking significantly lower on the social hierarchy than Caucasians (M = 73.0%, SE = 3.22%), t(88) = 4.83, p < .01, consistent with the notion that they perceive themselves as having lower endowed status. There was no difference in reported income across the two groups, t(93) =.03, p > .9.Purchase likelihoodAs expected, we found no difference in purchase likelihood across the two racial groups, t(110) = .57, p > .5; thus, differences in WTP cannot be attributed to differences in affinity for the product. WTPData were analyzed with a 2 x 3 (Race x Salience) General Linear Model (GLM). Gender, age, and income were non-significant predictors of WTP for the headphones, Fs < .75, ps > .15. Controlling for their effects did not change our results; hence, they are not discussed further. The predicted interaction of race and salience was significant, F(2, 107) = 7.76, p < .01 (see Table 1). When race was not activated, the difference between African-Americans’ and Caucasians’ WTP was not significant, t(37) < 1.0, p > .10. When race was activated explicitly, African-Americans were willing to pay significantly more than Caucasians, t(36) = 3.90, p < .01, d = 1.55 and more than African-Americans in the control condition, t(54) = 4.07, p < .01, d = 1.09. Conversely, when race was activated implicitly, African-Americans were willing to pay less than African-Americans in the control condition t(51) = 2.35, p < .05, d = .65.The data suggest that when race is explicitly activated, African-Americans become sensitized to stereotypes of being “poor” and “inferior,” and hence increase WTP in what we argue is an attempt to assert their status. Conversely, these stereotypes and related behaviors are so ingrained that implicit activation leads African-Americans to decrease their WTP as they do not feel a need to assert their status. The lack of a race-based difference in purchase likelihood suggests it is not product preference but the meaning of spending that led African-Americans to pay more. This finding is directly in line with our predictions. While purchase likelihood and WTP are correlated, r(112) = .33, p < .01, WTP activates thoughts of money, which activates distinct psychological states (DeVoe & Iyengar, 2010; Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 2006). For example, Vohs et al. (2006) show that offering cash instead of equally-valued products activates relational models associated with hierarchy. As such, only WTP captures our predicted status-money dynamic. African-Americans did not find the headphones more attractive, but when asked how much they would pay, they inflated their bid due to status concerns.Study 2: Perceived Status Disadvantage and Racial Identification Moderate Willingness-to-PayIf, as we argue, African-Americans’ propensity to pay more when their race is made explicitly salient is driven by status concerns, then PSD should strengthen this effect and racial identification might weaken it. Participants and DesignStudy 2 was conducted online with participants recruited from an independent survey panel, which was filtered based on respondents’ race. Respondents also reported their race at the end of the study. Of 484 invitees, 344 participated (27% African-American, 67% women, Mage = 45 years). This study used a 2 (Race Salience: Explicit, Implicit) x 2 (Race: African-American, Caucasian) between-subjects design. ProcedureRespondents participated in what they believed were two unrelated studies. The first, described as a study of how consumers perceive social behaviors, made race explicitly or implicitly salient in a manner identical to Study 1. The second purportedly investigated how individuals book online vacation packages. Respondents were asked to imagine they were planning a vacation using a website to make travel arrangements. They were presented with a standard vacation package that included airfare and hotel room. They were then provided the opportunity to bid on customizing two components of the vacation in a fashion similar to popular auction websites (e.g., ).A “Standard” hotel room was the package default. The room had basic amenities (e.g., king/2 double beds, television with basic cable) and cost $200 per night. Respondents could choose to upgrade to a “Luxury Club” room with additional amenities (e.g., Jacuzzi, wireless internet). The luxury room had no stated price, but participants were told it would be more expensive and were asked how much above the standard rate of $200 per night they would bid to upgrade. As in Study 1, we assessed differences in the attractiveness of the upgrade by asking respondents how likely (1 = not at all, 7 = very much) they would be to bid. Participants viewed a similar scenario for the flight upgrade (base price $300) and again reported their likelihood of bidding and bid amount to upgrade.Subsequently, participants answered questions measuring their PSD, racial identification, affect3, and demographic characteristics (age, gender, income). Measures PSD. Individuals reported their PSD (e.g., extent to which they believed others received more attention, had more status) on an eight-item, seven-point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = very much) adapted from Overbeck and Tansuwan (2010) and averaged into a composite score (α = .94). Higher values indicated a greater degree of PSD. Racial Identification. Respondents completed the four-item, seven-point (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) identity subscale of Luhtanen and Crocker’s (1992) Collective Self Esteem scale, which applied to race (e.g., extent to which racial group was an important part their self-image, reflection of who they were, etc.). Items were averaged into a composite racial identification score (α = .70).Data were analyzed using two 2 x 2 (Race x Salience) GLMs, one for each upgrade (hotel room, flight). Results for the two models are consistent. For brevity, we discuss only the room upgrade, but provide results for both upgrades in Table 2. Because our model includes covariates (affect, gender, age, income), we report Least Squares Means (LSM).Purchase Likelihood. As in Study 1, African-Americans (M = 4.49, SE = .20) and Caucasians (M = 4.13, SE = .12) reported no difference in propensity to upgrade, F(1, 331) = 2.37, p = .13. Thus, differences in WTP are not attributable to differences in product attractiveness.WTP. Thirteen individuals (4%) did not report WTP for either upgrade. Two bid amounts were outliers (Cook’s D > .05) and were excluded from analysis. Gender and income were not significant predictors of WTP, ts(312) < 1.0, ps > .40. Age was negatively correlated with WTP, b = -11.99, t(312) = 4.70, p < .01, consistent with past research (Schau, Gilly, & Wolfinbarger, 2009).There was a significant interaction of race and salience, F(1, 312) = 7.81, p < .01 on WTP to upgrade. When race was explicitly activated, African-Americans were willing to pay more to upgrade their room than Caucasians, t(178) = 4.32, p < .01, d = .76, replicating results from Study 1 (see Table 1). As expected, African-Americans were willing to pay more when race was explicitly, versus implicitly, activated, t(86) = 3.40, p < .01, d = .73. WTP did not differ for African-Americans and Caucasians when race was implicitly activated, t(150) < .50, p > .50. PSD. The predicted three-way interaction between PSD (centered around its grand mean; Aiken & West, 1991), race, and salience was significant, F(1, 312) = 7.46, p < .01 (see Table 2, Figures 1-2). For African-Americans with higher PSD, explicit activation of race increased WTP, b = 35.35, t(312) = 2.73, p < .01. This suggests that African-Americans who feel highly disadvantaged and sensitized to their race see paying more as an opportunity to assert their status.Racial identification. African-Americans (M = 3.98, SE = .14) reported identifying with their race significantly more than Caucasians (M = 2.97, SE = .09), t(323) = 6.09, p < .01. The predicted three-way interaction of racial identification (centered around its grand mean), race, and salience, F(1, 312) = 6.73, p < .01, revealed that more strongly-identified African-Americans, but not Caucasians, reported a lower WTP when their race was explicitly, versus implicitly, activated, b = -39.34, t(312) = 2.59, p < .01 (see Table 2, Figures 3-4). This suggests that, indeed, high-identifiers may feel a lower need to assert their status by paying more. As such, when race is explicitly activated, they pay less. DiscussionWhen status, vis-à-vis race, was explicitly activated, African-Americans were willing to pay considerably more to upgrade, compared with Caucasians and with African-Americans for whom race was implicitly activated. While African-Americans exhibited no greater preference for the upgrades, when asked their WTP, they inflated their bids due to status concerns. As predicted, PSD and racial identification yielded opposing effects on WTP. Greater feelings of status disadvantage resulted in a higher WTP as African-Americans tried to assert status. In contrast, highly-identified African-Americans had a lower WTP. We suggest that this may reflect their greater pride in group membership, which reduces felt vulnerability with regard to status. However, we do not examine this result further in this paper, so stronger confirmation of this dynamic awaits future research. Study 3: Perceived Status Disadvantage, Treatment Type, and Willingness-to-PayIn this study, we examine whether an overt threat to one’s status produces the same effect as explicit race salience on WTP. As such, we further test whether increasing WTP represents a status-asserting strategy for African-Americans who believe their status is threatened. This study extends the previous two in three key ways. First, in Study 2, implicit activation of African-Americans’ race did not result in an increase in WTP to assert status while explicit activation did. Study 3 uses only explicit activation, comparing its effects to a control condition. Second, a status threat was merely implied in our earlier studies, by negative stereotypes that guide construal of ambiguous situations. In Study 3, we manipulate threat overtly by comparing inferior treatment (high threat) with superior treatment in a purchasing context. We predict a Race x Treatment x Salience effect whereby only poorly-treated African-Americans, explicitly reminded of race, show a status-asserting increase in WTP. Participants and DesignThis study was conducted online with 510 new respondents (44% African-American, 64% women, Mage = 40) from the same survey panel as Study 2. We used a 2 (Race Salience: Explicit, Control) x 2 (Race: African-American, Caucasian) x 2 (Treatment Type: Inferior, Superior) design. The scenario asked individuals to bid on a room upgrade alone.ProcedureRespondents were presented with three ostensibly unrelated studies. The first contained the explicit salience manipulation, identical to that in Studies 1 and 2. The control condition contained no explicit or implicit reference to race.The second component was presented as a survey about how individuals respond to various shopping experiences. It contained the Treatment manipulation. Respondents read three different shopping scenarios in which they imagined themselves as a customer: purchasing a necklace at a high-end jewelry store, dining at an expensive restaurant, and browsing at an electronics shop. The inferior treatment condition described events such as being shown inferior products, being brushed aside while others were served, and being followed and accused of stealing. The superior treatment condition described prompt, respectful service. After reading each scenario, respondents wrote about how the interaction made them feel. Finally, in part three, participants responded to the same scenario as in Study 2, indicating their WTP to upgrade to a “Luxury Room.”We used the same eight-item composite as in Study 2 to measure PSD (α = .94). Respondents were also asked to report their affect4 and demographic characteristics (age, gender, income).ResultsWTPGender and income were non-significant predictors of WTP, ts < 1.0, ps > .40. Age was negatively correlated with WTP, b = -7.87, t(493) = 3.31, p < .01. There was a four-way interaction of PSD, Race, Salience and Treatment Type, F(1, 493) = 2.67, p = .07. We report results for the 229 individuals who reported a high PSD (greater than median 4.0, on a seven-point scale), as these are the ones who are expected to respond to a status threat. Results for the full sample are presented in Figure 5. There was a significant interaction of race, treatment type and salience, F(1, 220) = 3.80, p = .05. Overall, African-Americans who were treated well did not differ in WTP, regardless of race activation t(47) = .96, p > .25. When race was not activated, African-Americans offered less when they were treated poorly than when they were treated well, t(58) = 1.99, p = .05, d = .53, consistent with the notion that one pays less for poor service (See Table 3). However, when African-Americans received inferior treatment and race was salient, they offered to pay more than in any other condition. In particular, they had higher WTP than poorly-treated African-Americans whose race was not salient, t(50) = 2.63, p = .01, d = .81 and well-treated African-Americans whose race was made explicitly salient, t(43) = 1.84, p = .07, d = .58 They also had higher WTP than all Caucasians ps < .05. There were no significant differences in how much Caucasians were willing to pay for the upgrade, ps > .25 (see Table 3).DiscussionThese results suggest threatening situations produce the same effect as making race explicitly salient in ambiguous situations: African-Americans increase their WTP—using payment behavior to assert status. We show that African-Americans sometimes lowered their WTP in response to poor service. This highlights how African-Americans do not always respond by paying more. Further, when treated well, African-Americans’ WTP did not change even when race was salient: Superior treatment obviated any threat to status implied by race salience. However, when treated poorly, and when race was explicitly activated, African-Americans felt threatened and responded by increasing their WTP. General DiscussionAfrican-Americans are subject to many forms of discrimination in the marketplace, with one of the most well-known being racial disparities in pricing for products and services. African-Americans are often charged more for purchases, including food (Grady & Robertson, 1999), cars (Henriques, 2001) and home loans (Fernandez, 2007). Our work shows that African-Americans, who are assumed to have lower endowed status than Caucasians, may sometimes increase their WTP for products voluntarily, as a means to assert status. As Austin (1994) suggested, “blacks use money to purchase what they cannot earn, namely status” (p. 232). It is important to note that our work does not advocate price discrimination or treating African-Americans poorly in purchasing contexts. Further, it does not attempt to validate asking African-Americans to pay more. Our goal is to raise awareness that some individuals may sometimes support an unfair system through their own behavior. By underscoring how an entrenched status hierarchy can create internalized imperatives for African-Americans to pay more, we provide insight into race-based status dynamics and how they affect consumption patterns. On a broader scale, our work extends research on system justification, which proposes that low-status individuals (e.g., women, ethnic minorities) are motivated to believe that the social system is fair and status hierarchies are justified (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Our studies suggest that some African-Americans may try to challenge the hierarchy, asserting their own status by paying more. This payment differential, however, can also reinforce an unjust hierarchy.Having high status has many benefits such as preferential treatment, respect in others’ eyes, and feelings of superiority. As such, low status individuals may engage in behaviors that assert their status. 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Psychology Bulletin, 127, 797-826.Wittenbrink, B., Judd C. M., & Park, B. (1997). Evidence for racial prejudice at the implicit level and its relationship with questionnaire measures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 262-274. Wright, S. C., Taylor, D. M., & Moghaddam, F. M. (1990). Responding to membership in a disadvantaged group: From acceptance to collective protest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 994-1003.Footnotes1, 2Complete stimuli are available from the first author. 3, 4We found no main or moderating effects of affect, so it is not discussed. Table 1Study 2: Least Squares Mean (Standard Error) for Willingness-to-Pay for Headphones (Study 1) and Upgrades (Study 2)Race – SalienceHeadphonesRoom upgradeFlight upgradeAfrican-American – Explicit$22.75a ($1.59)$128.19a ($13.11)$131.34a ($16.97)Caucasian – Explicit$10.60 b ($2.65)$65.72b ($6.65)$66.81b ($8.64)African-American – Implicit$7.48 c ($1.68)$62.33 b ($14.57)$77.38 b ($18.86)Caucasian – Implicit$11.64 b, c ($2.53) $60.34 b ($7.69)$67.84 b ($9.91)African-American – Control$12.89b ($1.59)Caucasian – Control$13.36 b ($2.53)Note. Means that do not share a superscript differ at p < .05. Same superscripts indicate no difference (p > .10).Table 2Regression Coefficients for Willingness-to-Pay for Room and Flight UpgradeRoom upgradeFlight upgradeParameterBSE( B)pBSE (B)pIntercept55.6229.92 0.0617.7338.710.65Race: African-American1.9116.43 0.919.4521.220.66Salience: Explicit5.37 10.00 0.59-1.0312.940.94Race* Salience: African-American – Explicit61.0021.82 0.0155.3228.190.05Gender: Female6.84 9.06 0.4518.4511.710.12Age-11.99 2.55 <.001-7.033.310.03Income2.06 3.15 0.517.794.070.06Affect8.69 5.49 0.119.577.090.18PSD0.89 4.88 0.860.116.300.99PSD *Race: African-American-7.03 8.86 0.43-12.2611.440.28PSD * Salience: Explicit-1.52 6.19 0.810.158.000.99PSD *Race* Salience: African-American – Explicit35.35 12.94 0.0141.9616.710.01Racial Identification1.33 5.67 0.815.837.320.43Racial Identification*Race: African-American5.43 10.88 0.622.8414.050.84Racial Identification* Salience: Explicit0.38 7.33 0.96-0.979.510.92Racial Identification*Race* Salience: African-American – Explicita-39.34 15.16 0.01-21.5119.600.27Note. aWhile the three-way interaction of racial identification, race and salience is not statistically significant for the flight upgrade (p > .10), the means are directionally correct and the pattern is consistent with our other results.Table 3Study 3: Mean (Standard Error) Willingness-to-Pay for Room upgradeTreatment TypeRace – SalienceSuperior TreatmentInferior TreatmentAfrican-American – Control$74.82a,* ($15.72)$40.00b ($7.65)Caucasian – Control$55.97a ($12.67)$46.88 a ($10.60)African-American – Explicit$50.48 a, b ($19.75)$109.95c,* ($25.43)Caucasian – Explicit$49.26 a ($12.99)$61.30 a ($13.37)Note. *These two cells differ at p = .07. Otherwise, means with different superscripts differ at p < .05. Any shared superscript indicates no difference (p > .10). Figure 1Study 2: Mean Willingness-to-Pay for Room Upgrade by Perceived Status Disadvantage (mean-centered)Figure 2Study 2: Mean Willingness-to-Pay for Flight Upgrade by Perceived Status Disadvantage (mean-centered)Figure 3Study 2: Mean Willingness-to-Pay for Room Upgrade by Racial Identification (mean-centered)Figure 4Study 2: Mean Willingness-to-Pay for Flight Upgrade by Racial Identification (mean-centered)Figure 5. Study 3: Willingness-to-pay for Upgrade by Race, Treatment Type, Salience. Panel A. Respondents who feel low PSD (less than median of 4.0 on seven-point scale)Panel B. Respondents who feel high PSD (above median)*Note. AA = African-Americans, C = Caucasians, IT = Inferior Treatment, ST = Superior Treatment. For Panel A, no pair-wise comparisons are statistically significant, p’s > .25. For mean differences in Panel B, please see Table 3. ................
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