High-Status Exemplars and the Misperception of the Asian-White Wealth Gap

In this research, we test the central hypothesis that perceptions of Asian Americans as a high-status “model minority” lead to overestimates of the extent of wealth equality between Asian and White Americans. We test this hypothesis across three studies that manipulate the salience of high- or low-status Asian American exemplars before soliciting estimates of Asian-White wealth equality. A meta-analysis of the results revealed that participants...