Clara Wilkins

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni. Recent Wesleyan News 1. President Michael Roth publishes op-eds in The Washington Post titled, "We can't let cynics ruin college," and "What is college for? (Hint: It's not just about getting in.)." He also sat for an "On Leadership" interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2. The Conversation: "The dangerous belief that white people are under attack" Assistant Professor of Psychology Clara Wilkins writes about her research on perceptions of reverse discrimination in light of recent societal trends. 3. Marketplace: "Here comes the tax bill…

Men in the U.S. today increasingly believe themselves to be victims of gender discrimination, and there are a record number of recent lawsuits claiming anti-male bias. In a study published in March in Psychology of Men and Masculinity, Assistant Professor of Psychology Clara Wilkins and her co-authors assess the consequences of these perceptions of anti-male bias. Are men who perceive discrimination more likely to discriminate against women? How do beliefs about societal order affect men's evaluations of men and women? The article is co-authored by former post-doctoral fellow Joseph Wellman, now an assistant professor at California State University–San Bernardino, Erika Flavin '14, and…

A paper by Assistant Professor of Psychology Clara Wilkins, Alexander Hirsch '13 and Michael Inkles '12 has been published in the journal Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. Titled, "The threat of racial progress and the self-protective nature of perceiving anti-White bias," the paper describes two studies in which the researchers examine whether racial progress is threatening to whites, and if perceiving anti-white bias assuages that threat. The first study showed that whites primed with racial progress—by reading an article on social advancement by minorities—exhibited evidence of threat: lower implicit self-worth relative to the baseline. The second study replicated the threat effect…

A paper authored by Assistant Professor of Psychology Clara Wilkins, her former post-doc Joseph Wellman, and Katherine Schad '13, MA '14, was published in August in the journal Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. Titled "Reactions to anti-male sexism claims: The moderating roles of status-legitimizing belief and endorsement and group identification," the paper examines how people react to men who claim to be victims of gender bias, an increasingly common phenomenon. In particular, the researchers considered how status legitimizing beliefs (SLBs), which encompass a set of ideologies that justify existing status hierarchies, and gender identification (GID) moderated men's and women's reactions to a man who claimed…

Assistant Professor of Psychology Clara Wilkins is the co-author of a paper titled "You Can Win But I Can't Lose: Bias Against High-Status Groups Increases Their Zero-Sum Beliefs About Discrimination" published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, November 2014. The article will be published again in the in the journal's March 2015 print edition. Wilkins co-authored the article with several other researchers including Joseph Wellman, formerly a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at Wesleyan, who is now at California State University, San Barnardino, and Katherine Schad BA '13/MA '14. The study considered what causes people to espouse "zero-sum beliefs"—or beliefs that gains for one…

Clara Wilkins, assistant professor of psychology, is interested in research showing that whites are increasingly likely to see themselves as victims of racial discrimination, despite persistent gaps in income and other forms of inequality between blacks and whites in the U.S. Perceiving bias against whites is even more pervasive in white young adults than in the population as a whole, with 58 percent of whites aged 18-24 agreeing that, “discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.” In a new study, Wilkins and Joseph Wellman, postdoctoral fellow in psychology, investigated how whites react…

Clara Wilkins, assistant professor of psychology, and Joseph Wellman, postdoctoral fellow in psychology, are co-authors of a paper titled, “Status Legitimizing Beliefs Predict Positivity Toward Whites Who Claim Anti-White Bias," published online Aug. 15 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Wesleyan in the News

Wilkins, Alumni Author Paper on Consequences of Perceived Anti-Male Bias

Wilkins, Alumni Author New Paper on Threat of Racial Progress to Whites

Wilkins, Wellman, Schad ’13, MA ’14 Paper Examines Reactions to Claims of Anti-Male Bias

Wilkins Published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Perceived Anti-White Discrimination the Focus of Wilkins’ New Study

Wilkins, Wellman Published in Social Psychology Journal