Television use, stereotypes of African Americans and opinions on affirmative action: An affective model of policy reasoning

Abstract

This paper proposes and tests an affective model of policy reasoning with television use as a first stage variable in a heuristic causal chain. We predict that TV use leads to affect which then leads to opinions on related issues. We test the power of the model to explain how citizens make up their minds regarding government policies on affirmative action, with stereotypes of African Americans as the second stage, affective variable. Data from White college students indicate that there was good fit (non‐significant chi‐squares) for the model. The paths explaining the most variance were those from perceived negative TV attributes to stereotypes, and stereotypes to opinions. Perceptions of negative TV portrayals predicted negative stereotypes, which predicted opposition to affirmative action policies. Implications for media use and heuristic reasoning models are discussed.