College Students' Attitudes Toward Blacks and Arabs Following a Terrorist Attack as a Function of Varying Levels of Media Exposure1

Abstract

Attitudes toward Blacks and Arabs immediately following a terrorist attack on the United States, as well as 1 year later, were investigated. White undergraduate students completed a modified version of the Should-Would Discrepancy Questionnaire (Monteith & Voils, 1998), assessing beliefs about what they should do in certain situations pertaining to race and what they would do in these situations. Additionally, daily self-reported levels of news exposure were measured. The result was that the participants both believed that they should and would be more prejudiced toward Arabs than toward Blacks, at both Time 1 and Time 2. Furthermore, at Time 1, there was a trend for participants reporting high levels of daily news exposure (television, radio, Internet, and newspapers) to be more prejudiced toward Arabs than were participants who reported low levels. No effect of news exposure on attitudes toward Blacks was found at Time 1. At Time 2, however, participants reporting greater amounts of news exposure were more prejudiced toward Blacks than were participants reporting medium or low levels. Possible reasons for and implications of these findings are discussed.