Does unfairness feel different if it can be linked to group membership? Cognitive, affective, behavioral and physiological implications of discrimination and unfairness

•We compared fair/unfair treatment among Whites/Latinos in inter/intragroup contexts.•Unfair treatment has different implications depending on group context.•Ethnicity & system-legitimizing beliefs (SJBs) interact to predict responses to discrimination.•Ethnicity & SJBs do not predict responses to unfair, group-irrelevant treatment.•Post-discrimination, low-SJBs show cardiovascular challenge; high-SJBs show threat.

We assessed whether unfair treatment leads to different attributional, emotional, behavioral, and cardiovascular responses depending on whether or not the treatment is group-based. Latino and White men (N = 209) were treated fairly or unfairly by an ingroup or outgroup member. As expected, attributions to discrimination were the greatest among those treated unfairly in an intergroup context. Moreover, among those treated unfairly in an intergroup context, Latinos who did not endorse the protestant work ethic (PWE) responded with more anger, had higher attributions to discrimination, and punished the offender more, compared to Whites and high-PWE Latinos. Cardiovascular responses to unfair intergroup treatment did not differ by ethnicity: unfair intergroup treatment was less threatening (more challenging) when low (vs. high) in PWE. Results suggest that for low-status group members responding to unfair intergroup treatment (i.e., discrimination), identifying the treatment as discriminatory and becoming angry may be more cardiovascularly-adaptive than not. Implications are discussed.