Enraged, Rattled, and Wronged Entitlement's Response to Social Progress

Psychological entitlement, or a sense that some individuals or groups are inherently worthier of certain privileges, is an overlooked but essential feature of the persistent inequality that resists social progress and oppresses those in the margins. In the political climate that gave rise to and resulted in Donald Trump's presidency, confusion, rage, and feelings of victimization linger among those who felt empowered by the validation felt with him into office--feelings that existed and will continue to exist independently of the former president himself. Enraged, Rattled, and Wronged confronts psychological entitlement in its many forms or related attributes, such as narcissism, to expose the ugly truths at the heart of this phenomenon. In exploring how members of advantaged groups come to understand their belief in their own worthiness relative to those in disadvantaged groups, expert psychologist Kristin J. Anderson channels her research and expertise in prejudice and discrimination to ask critical questions of the current political and social climate. What happens to entitled people when they feel pushed aside? How does their inflated sense of deservingness make them vulnerable to manipulation by the demagogues who use them, blinding them to the negative outcomes that are often paradoxical? What are they willing to tear down as they scramble to keep their grip on the status and power they believe are rightfully theirs? How has entitled rage played out historically, and how do these events lend themselves to both the predictable and unpredictable manifestations of power grabs that we see now? Drawing from a wealth of timely examples and empirical literature, Anderson situates this anger as backlash against the social progress that empowers marginalized groups, even at the expense of the dominant group, if necessary. Citing historical moments such as the rage of whites directed at newly freed African Americans in the South during Reconstruction and the anger of the entitled when women have attempted to control their reproduction, Anderson traces this phenomenon over time and delineates the link between individual-level processing of psychological deservingness and macro-level problems that impede equality, concluding with a call for action for to dominant group members to join the vibrant movements for social progress that have emerged in recent years.

Kristin J. Anderson is the author of the books Modern Misogyny: Anti-Feminism in a Post-Feminist Era and Benign Bigotry: The Psychology of Subtle Prejudice. She is Professor of Psychology at the Center for Critical Race Studies at the University of Houston-Downtown. She earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Anderson's research explores "benign" bigotry--subtle forms of prejudice and discrimination including implicit bias and microaggressions. Her teaching areas include psychology and the law, psychology of prejudice, psychology of women, and social psychology. Anderson's scholarship has appeared in journals such as Sex Roles, Psychology of Women Quarterly, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, and Journal of Latinos and Education. She blogs for Psychology Today.