The Conditions Ripe for Racial Spillover Effects

Abstract

A growing body of research shows that Barack Obama's rise to prominence has further polarized mass politics by racial attitudes and race—a phenomenon we have described elsewhere as the spillover of racialization. There is still much that remains unknown about source‐cue spillover effects in general and the spillover of racialization in particular. This study helps fill that void by drawing on prior research in political psychology and several new empirical examples to address lingering questions that have not been adequately answered. Those new empirical analyses suggest that issues that are already strongly influenced by racial attitudes, issues that the public has strong opinions about, and issues where Obama cross‐pressures Americans with racially conservative positions are all less likely to racialize in response to the president's visible positions. I also show that low‐information Americans and Democrats are most susceptible to racial spillover effects. Finally, the extant evidence suggests that the source‐cue spillover effects can have lasting impacts on public opinion and that the races, religions, and genders of other prominent elite sources can also activate group‐based considerations in mass opinion formation.