Explicit Racial Prejudice Research Articles

Are Aversive Racists Distinguishable From Those With High Explicit Racial Prejudice?

Aversive racists are those low in outward expressions of racism that nonetheless possess negativefeelings (i.e., implicit prejudicial attitudes) toward out-groups such as African or AsianAmericans. This study examined whether those meeting the criteria of aversive racism were statisticallymore advanced from those who are high in attitudes favoring explicit racial prejudice inmoral judgment development, moral identity, universal orientation, empathy, and social desirability.Conversely, this study examined whether those meeting the criteria for aversive racism werestatistically less advanced from those who are high in attitudes favoring explicit racial prejudicein authenticity, social dominance, and authoritarianism. Signifi cant differences were observed inauthenticity, nonprejudice, authoritarianism, social dominance, and postconventional reasoning.The fi ndings support that aversive racism appears to be a phenomenon distinct from high explicitracial prejudice. However, fi ndings also suggest that though aversive racism may impact day-todaydecisions, it does not appear to be as detrimental to the self and social functioning overallas is high explicit racial prejudice.

When It Feels Right, Go With It: Affective Regulation of Affiliative Social Tuning

Past research demonstrates that when people are motivated to affiliate with another, their beliefs and implicit attitudes spontaneously adjust toward that person's apparent beliefs, a phenomenon dubbed affiliative social tuning. Two experiments examined the role of people's mood in regulating affiliative social tuning of implicit and explicit racial prejudice. Based on the idea that positive mood encourages and negative mood discourages pursuit of accessible goals, we predicted that when participants were in positive moods, interpersonal goals and the apparent beliefs of an interaction partner would interactively shape participants' racial prejudice. In contrast, when participants were in negative moods, interpersonal goals and the apparent beliefs of an interaction partner were not expected to impact racial prejudice. Results of two experiments supported these predictions. Other ways that mood may shape affiliative social tuning are discussed.

How Explicit Racial Prejudice Hurt Obama in the 2008 Election

Some commentators claim that white Americans put prejudice behind them when evaluating presidential candidates in 2008. Previous research examining whether white racism hurts black candidates has yielded mixed results. Fortunately, the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama provides an opportunity to examine more rigorously whether prejudice disadvantages black candidates. I also make use of an innovation in the measurement of racial stereotypes in the 2008 American National Election Studies survey, which yields higher levels of reporting of racial stereotypes among white respondents. I find that negative stereotypes about blacks significantly eroded white support for Barack Obama. Further, racial stereotypes do not predict support for previous Democratic presidential candidates or current prominent Democrats, indicating that white voters punished Obama for his race rather than his party affiliation. Finally, prejudice had a particularly large impact on the voting decisions of Independents and a substantial impact on Democrats but very little influence on Republicans.

The boundary of racial prejudice: Comparing preferences for computer-synthesized White, Black, and robot characters

Humanoid social robots are predicted to interact with humans in various domains of social life as robot technology keeps advancing. One area for understanding the impact of robots on human society is interracial relations. Would robots constitute a nonhuman outgroup to trigger human ingroup favoritism which will confine the boundary of racial prejudice? A study (N=105) assessed Whites’ rank-ordered preferences for 15 White, Black and robot computer-synthesized characters. Explicit racial prejudice positively predicted White versus Black character preferences for liking and as one’s avatar, virtual friend, and virtual tutor. The implicit racial prejudice, measured with the Implicit Association Test (IAT), provided additional predictive utility for virtual friend. Among the 64 participants who reported minimal interest in robots, explicit racial prejudice negatively predicted preferences for Black over robot characters, showing a pattern that individuals with high prejudice preferred robot characters over Black ones. The results suggest alarming strength of racial prejudice and cast doubt on the notion of all-human ingroup favoritism in comparison to robots.

Priming Mammies, Jezebels, and Other Controlling Images: An Examination of the Influence of Mediated Stereotypes on Perceptions of an African American Woman

This study examines how mediated portrayals of African American women influence judgments of African American women in social situations. Participants (N = 182) observed a mammy, jezebel, or nonstereotypic image on video. Participants then observed a mock employment interview involving either an African American or White woman. Participants completed measures of implicit and explicit racial prejudice. As hypothesized, participants associated the African American interviewee more quickly with negative terms (e.g., aggressive) than with positive terms (e.g., sincere). Also as hypothesized, when evaluating the job interviewee, participants who observed the jezebel stereotype video and the African American female interviewee responded more quickly to jezebel-related terms (e.g., sexual) than positive, negative, and mammy (e.g., maternal) terms. These results call for an expansion of the boundaries used in stereotype research and closer investigation of how mediated imagery might influence person perception.

Racial Democracy in the Americas

The “racial democracy” (Iberian exceptionalism) thesis claims that racial prejudice in Latin America is not only lower than that found in the United States but is essentially absent altogether. We explored the plausibility of this thesis by the use of both explicit and implicit prejudice measures among Blacks and Whites from the United States and three Caribbean nations. In general, the results showed significant racial prejudice against Blacks and in favor of Whites in all four nations. African Americans were the only participants not to show significant implicit prejudice either in favor of or against Blacks. In addition, North Americans (i.e., participants from the United States) displayed lower implicit and explicit racial prejudice than participants in each of the three Latino nations. Overall, the results clearly contradicted the thesis of racial democracy and suggest that Latin America may not be nearly as egalitarian as some have argued.