Unexpected Backlash: When and Why Oppressed Group Members Resist Help from Outside Activists

One of the key ways to understand how discrimination can be counteracted is to study the role of activists – individuals who campaign for the rights of oppressed group members. A considerable amount of attention has been devoted to examining how dominant social group members, especially white men, can be encouraged to take on the role of activists. Yet organizational scholars have not paid sufficient attention to a force that may undermine their ability to do so: members of the groups they seek to help. We incorporate research on trust to suggest that oppressed group members often have good reason to resist the help of dominant group members due to suspicion that they have ulterior motives (a lack of benevolence-based trust), doubts about their ability to effectively help (a lack of competence-based trust),and concerns that they will continue to benefit from social inequality even while speaking out against it (a lack of integrity- based trust). We then examine how dominant group members can demonstrate t...