People in the majority don't notice discrimination because it feels like normal to them.
April 17, 2026
Original Paper
Growing Apart: Scalp Hair, Stigma, and the Cultural Default Signaling Hypothesis in Recruitment Settings
PsyArXiv · 9ybae_v1
The Takeaway
This study looked at how non-Black women react to workplace hair policies that clearly disadvantage Black women. Surprisingly, the majority group didn't see these rules as a 'red flag' for a toxic culture; instead, they viewed them as 'cultural defaults.' Because the rules didn't affect them, they assumed the rules were just a neutral part of being professional. It reveals a massive social blind spot: we are often blind to injustice not because we're mean, but because we mistake a biased rule for a universal standard. For any workplace, it’s a warning that 'professionalism' is often just a code word for 'the majority's preference.'
From the abstract
We examine how Black and non-Black women in recruitment settings may show diverging responses to organizational signals for members to assimilate via their choice of hairstyles. Consistent with theories of identity threat, we expect Black women to show lower organizational attractiveness amidst such signals due to stigmatization. For non-Black women, in contrast to research suggesting they should be deterred by norms that signal identity threat for Black women, we propose the cultural default si