Clarifying the meaning of symbolic racism (original) (raw)
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The Conceptualization and Measurement of Symbolic Racism
The Journal of Politics, 2005
The conceptualization and measurement of symbolic racism have been the subjects of a number of critiques, of which we address four: (1) we briefly review the history of its past conceptualization, which has been somewhat loose, and of its past measurement, which has been more consistent than often suggested. We then address three other critiques empirically. In each case the results support the original theory: (2) symbolic racism is an internally consistent belief system; it does have individual and structural variants, but they are highly correlated and have virtually identical effects on whites' racial policy preferences; (3) the effects of symbolic racism on whites' racial policy preferences are not artifacts of shared-item content with policy-attitude items (both conclusions are replicated in quite similar form in two surveys); and (4) symbolic racism is a distinctive belief system in its own right, encompassing a set of attitudes different from those in ideological conservatism, antiegalitarianism, individualism, and old-fashioned racism (a conclusion replicated in similar form in six surveys). Perhaps most importantly, the effects of symbolic racism on racial policy preferences are the same regardless of which conventional measure of symbolic racism is used.
The origins of symbolic racism
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003
The theory of symbolic racism places its origins in a blend of anti-Black affect and conservative values, particularly individualism. We clarify that hypothesis, test it directly, and report several findings consistent with it. Study 1 shows that racial prejudice and general political conservatism fall into 2 separate factors, with symbolic racism loading about equally on both. Study 2 found that the anti-Black affect and individualism significantly explain symbolic racism. The best-fitting model both fuses those 2 elements into a single construct (Black individualism) and includes them separately. The effects of Black individualism on racial policy preferences are mostly mediated by symbolic racism. Study 3 shows that Black individualism is distinctively racial, with effects distinctly different from either an analogous gender individualism or race-neutral individualism.
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES The Origins of Symbolic Racism
2015
The theory of symbolic racism places its origins in a blend of anti-Black affect and conservative values, particularly individualism. We clarify that hypothesis, test it directly, and report several findings consistent with it. Study 1 shows that racial prejudice and general political conservatism fall into 2 separate factors, with symbolic racism loading about equally on both. Study 2 found that the anti-Black affect and individualism significantly explain symbolic racism. The best-fitting model both fuses those 2 elements into a single construct (Black individualism) and includes them separately. The effects of Black individualism on racial policy preferences are mostly mediated by symbolic racism. Study 3 shows that Black individualism is distinctively racial, with effects distinctly different from either an analogous gender individualism or race-neutral individualism. Racial conflicts have plagued the United States from its very beginnings, in particular driven by racial prejudi...
The Rational Basis of Symbolic Racism
Modern political-science research on racial attitudes suggests that white conservatism stems from symbolism, prejudice and socialized resentment. The implication, sometimes made explicit, is that racial conservatism has no rational competitive basis; it does not grow out of the social structure of intergroup competition. Evidence for this claim usually appears in two sorts of analysis: (1) survey analysis connecting racial conservatism (e.g., opposition to affirmative action or busing) to anti-black "symbolic" value judgments, and (2) cross-level models showing that racial conservatism does not respond to measures of a white respondent's "self interest." The enclosed paper questions the extent to which racial conservatism can be passed off to mere psychological orientation. Using data from a particularly valuable racial-issues survey, I show that supposedly symbolic judgments in fact possess an underlying structural basis, one that I term Cultural Backlash. O...
Why Do White Americans Oppose Race-Targeted Policies? Clarifying the Impact of Symbolic Racism
Political Psychology, 2009
Measures of symbolic racism (SR) have often been used to tap racial prejudice toward Blacks. However, given the wording of questions used for this purpose, some of the apparent effects on attitudes toward policies to help Blacks may instead be due to political conservatism, attitudes toward government, and/or attitudes toward redistributive government policies in general. Using data from national probability sample surveys and an experiment, we explored whether SR has effects even when controlling for these potential confounds and whether its effects are specific to policies involving Blacks. Holding constant conservatism and attitudes toward limited government, SR predicted Whites' opposition to policies designed to help Blacks and more weakly predicted attitudes toward social programs whose beneficiaries were racially ambiguous. An experimental manipulation of policy beneficiaries revealed that SR predicted policy attitudes when Blacks were the beneficiary but not when women were. These findings are consistent with the claim that SR's association with racial policy preferences is not due to these confounds.
Voss The Rational Basis of Symbolic Racism 2
2000
Modern political-science research on racial attitudes suggests that white conservatism stems from symbolism, prejudice and socialized resentment. The implication, sometimes made explicit, is that racial conservatism has no rational competitive basis; it does not grow out of the social structure of intergroup competition. Evidence for this claim usually appears in two sorts of analysis: (1) survey analysis connecting racial conservatism (e.g., opposition to affirmative action or busing) to anti-black “symbolic” value judgments, and (2) cross-level models showing that racial conservatism does not respond to measures of a white respondent’s “self interest.” The enclosed paper questions the extent to which racial conservatism can be passed off to mere psychological orientation. Using data from a particularly valuable racial-issues survey, I show that supposedly symbolic judgments in fact possess an underlying structural basis, one that I term Cultural Backlash. Other researchers missed ...
Symbolic Racism: Problems of Motive Attribution in Political Analysis
Journal of Social Issues, 1986
Research on symbolic racism attempts to identify the underlying psychological sources of public resistance to policies designed to promote racial equality. This research program has been built on the fundamental idea that, although oldfashioned, overt forms of racism have lost much of their appeal in American politics, new, more subtle and symbolic forms of racism continue to exert a pervasive influence on policy debates, making themselves felt, for example, in opposition to busing, to afirmative action, or even to black candidates running for ofice. This paper identifies serious empirical, logical, and methodological shortcomings in the case that researchers have advanced to support the symbolic racism thesis. Most serious are (a) the lack of clarity in theoretical definitions of symbolic racism, (b) the major inconsistencies in the operationalization of the construct, (c) the confounding of ' 'independent" and "dependent" variables in the construction of symbolic racism scales, (d) the politically controversial nature of the item content of certain symbolic racism scales, (e) the frequent failures to distinguish the impact of traditional racial prejudice from that of symbolic racism on policy preferences, and cf) the tendency to pose a very restrictive conception of self-interest as the major explanatory alternative to symbolic racism interpretations of policy preferences.
Most Racial Studies primarily focus on African Americans without paying attention to non- black minorities, and it fails to capture recent increase in racial diversity. Based on previous theories and empirical findings, we propose a new model, minority comparison model, which accounts for theoretical shortcomings in Racial Studies. This model (1) captures psy- chological processes that compare blacks and nonblacks, and (2) explores the effects of whites’ multiracial evaluation on racialized policy preferences. Drawing on a 2008 national representative sample, this study finds that whites who have positive stereotype of non- blacks (e.g., Hispanics and/or Asians) but negative stereotype of blacks show substantially higher symbolic racism and stronger opposition to Affirmative Action, whereas whites who have positive stereotype of blacks but negative stereotypes of nonblacks have stronger opposition to expansive immigration policy. Our study offers new ways of understanding and accounting for symbolic racism in modern context, and shows how whites’ preferences in racialized policies are influenced by multiracial evaluation.
Prejudice and politics: Symbolic racism versus racial threats to the good life
Journal of personality and social …, 1981
Although theories of prejudice have been extensively catalogued, empirical confrontations between competing theories are surprisingly rare. The primary goal of the present research was to test two major theoretical approaches to prejudice by whites against blacks: realistic group conflict theory, which emphasizes the tangible threats blacks might pose to whites' private lives; and a sociocultural theory of prejudice termed symbolic racism, which emphasizes abstract, moralistic resentments of blacks, presumably traceable to preadult socialization. The main dependent variable in our analysis is suburban whites' voting behavior in two mayoral elections in Los Angeles, both strongly influenced by racial issues, that matched the same two candidates, one black and one white. In both elections, symbolic racism (sociocultural prejudice) was the major determinant of voting against the black candidate for people removed from possible personal threats posed by blacks as well as for those at risk. Direct racial threats to whites' private lives (to their jobs, their neighborhoods, their children's schooling, their families' safety) had little effect on either antiblack voting behavior or symbolic racism. The article closes by developing the implications of these results for theories of prejudice and, more speculatively, for interpretations of the effects of voters' private lives on their political behavior.