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Category: Project

Description: Americans remain largely unaware of the magnitude of economic inequality in the nation and the degree to which it is patterned by race. In the present research we exposed a community sample of respondents to one of three interventions designed to promote a more realistic understanding of the Black-White wealth gap. The interventions were developed to conform to best practices in messaging about racial inequality drawn from the social sciences, yet differed in the extent to which they highlighted a single story versus data-based trends in Black-White wealth inequality or both. The interventions that highlighted data versus only a single story of racial inequality were most effective in both shifting how people talk about racial wealth inequality—eliciting less speech about personal achievement—and, critically, improving accuracy in perceptions of the Black-White wealth gap. These increases in accuracy persisted up to 18 months following the intervention, though accuracy did decline across time. The initial findings from this study highlight how data can be leveraged, along with current recommendations in the social sciences, to promote more accurate understandings of the magnitude of racial inequality in society, laying the necessary groundwork for messaging about equity-enhancing policy.