Abstract:
The U.S. is facing a crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). Murder is the third leading cause among Native women and, compared to non-Hispanic White women, Native women are two times more likely to go missing and three times more likely to be murdered. Despite this, less than 5% of these cases are covered by national or international media (Lucchesi & Echo-Hawk, 2018). Across two studies we aim to identify the psychological factors that may help explain the lack of advocacy for MMIWG. Study 1 (N = 189) and Study 2 (a pre-registered replication; N = 4000) revealed that perceptions that Natives: 1) have vanished and 2) do not experience racism, leads people to blame MMIWG victims and overlook systems that maintain the crisis, ultimately increasing apathy and undermining advocacy efforts. These findings illuminate the detrimental effects stemming from societies lack of understanding for the lived experience of Native Peoples, in particular their contemporary existence and experiences with racism.