Underrepresentation and the Perception of Others’ Racial Attitudes

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 757-767
Author(s):  
Arianne E. Eason ◽  
Cheryl R. Kaiser ◽  
Jessica A. Sommerville
Keyword(s):  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Racial Attitude ◽  
Racial Composition ◽  
Underrepresented Groups ◽  
Majority Group ◽  
Racial Preferences ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Low Diversity

Across two experiments, we investigate racial attitude perceptions in low-diversity environments to explore whether friendships with members of numerically underrepresented groups serve as a stronger indication of individuals’ racial attitudes than friendships with members of the numeric majority. Children aged 7–10 years heard about a Black (Experiment 1) or White (Experiment 2) protagonist befriending two classmates who belonged to either the numeric minority or majority group. When protagonists befriended classmates from the numeric minority rather than the numeric majority, participants inferred racial preferences among Black protagonists who befriended in-group (but not out-group) children and White protagonists who befriended in-group and out-group children. Racial preferences were not assumed when children made inferences about others’ choice of future social partners. This work has implications for understanding how the racial composition of environments may affect perceptions of the same-race and cross-race friendships.

scholarly journals The Best Way to Measure Explicit Racial Attitudes Is to Ask About Them

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 896-906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan R. Axt
Keyword(s):  
Social Desirability ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Black People ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Racial Attitude ◽  
Measurement Quality ◽  
Attitude Measure ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Racial Preferences

Direct assessments of explicit racial attitudes, such as reporting an overt preference for White versus Black people, may raise social desirability concerns and reduce measurement quality. As a result, researchers have developed more indirect self-report measures of explicit racial attitudes. While such measures dampen social desirability concerns, they may weaken measurement quality by assessing construct-irrelevant attitudes, thereby lowering correspondence between measure and construct. To investigate whether direct or indirect self-report measures better assess explicit racial attitudes, participants ( N > 800,000) completed an implicit racial attitude measure and a subset of over 400 items that varied in the degree to which they were indirect or direct assessments of self-reported racial attitudes. More direct assessments of racial preferences were better predictors of implicit racial attitudes and maximized differences between Black and White participants. These results suggest that the best method to measure individuals’ explicit racial attitudes is to ask about them directly.

scholarly journals The best way to measure explicit racial attitudes is to ask about them

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Axt
Keyword(s):  
Social Desirability ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Black People ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Racial Attitude ◽  
Measurement Quality ◽  
Attitude Measure ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Racial Preferences

Direct assessments of explicit racial attitudes, such as reporting an overt preference for White versus Black people, may raise social desirability concerns and reduce measurement quality. As a result, researchers have developed more indirect self-report measures of explicit racial attitudes. While such measures dampen social desirability concerns, they may weaken measurement quality by assessing construct-irrelevant attitudes, thereby lowering correspondence between measure and construct. To investigate whether direct or indirect self-report measures better assess explicit racial attitudes, participants (N > 800,000) completed an implicit racial attitude measure and a subset of over 400 items that varied in the degree to which they were indirect or direct assessments of self-reported racial attitudes. More direct assessments of racial preferences were better predictors of implicit racial attitudes and maximized differences between Black and White participants. These results suggest that the best method to measure individuals’ explicit racial attitudes is to ask about them directly.

Individual Differences in Color-Name Connotations as Related to Measures of Racial Attitude

1969 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 383-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Williams
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Semantic Differential ◽  
Racial Attitude ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Color Name

Caucasian college students made semantic differential ratings of color names concurrent with their participation in studies of racial attitudes. The evaluative meanings assigned to the color names Black and Brown were positively correlated with four measures of attitude toward Negro persons, a result consistent with the hypothesis that the designation of racial groups by color names is one determinant of attitudes toward the racial groups.

Incipient Racism? When Does it Start? Racial Attitude Development in Young Children

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 766-785
Author(s):  
Phyllis A. Katz
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Black Families ◽  
Racial Attitude ◽  
Parental Behaviors ◽  
White Families ◽  
Perceptual Skills ◽  
Developmental Patterning ◽  
Parental Willingness ◽  
Attitude Development

The present study examined the forerunners of racial attitudes in two groups of children (from Black families and White families). Assessments of various cognitive and perceptual skills were conducted longitudinally at seven age points from six months to three years of age. Racial attitudes were present in almost half of the children by three, although not all had yet exhibited mastery of underlying skills. Both groups of children exhibited similar pro-same race attitudes at 36 months, but some divergence in developmental patterning began at 30 months of age. Some parental behaviors such as parental willingness to discuss race and diversity of the child’s environment were related to attitudes at three.

scholarly journals American Idol: Evidence on Same-Race Preferences

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jungmin Lee
Keyword(s):  
Racial Composition ◽  
Television Show ◽  
American Idol ◽  
Percentage Point Increase ◽  
Point Estimates ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Racial Preferences ◽  
Point Increase ◽  
Popular Television ◽  
Voting Mechanism

Abstract This paper examines whether viewers of the popular television show, American Idol, exhibit racial preferences. We find evidence on same-race preferences among black viewers only: when there are more black contestants in the show, more black viewers are tuned in to watch it. The result is robust after we account for the endogeneity problem regarding the contestants' racial composition, which arises due to the voting mechanism. Our point estimates tell that a 10 percentage point increase in the proportion of black contestants increases viewership ratings for black households by about 1.3 percentage points.

Racial Preferences for Schools: Evidence from an Experiment with White, Black, Latinx, and Asian Parents and Students

2021 ◽  
pp. 003804072110651
Author(s):  
Chantal A. Hailey
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Black Families ◽  
Racial Composition ◽  
Black Schools ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Racial Preferences ◽  
White Schools ◽  
School Preferences

Most U.S. students attend racially segregated schools. To understand this pattern, I employ a survey experiment with New York City families actively choosing schools and investigate whether they express racialized school preferences. I find school racial composition heterogeneously affects white, black, Latinx, and Asian parents’ and students’ willingness to attend schools. Independent of characteristics potentially correlated with race, white and Asian families preferred white schools over black and Latinx schools, Latinx families preferred Latinx schools over black schools, and black families preferred black schools over white schools. Results, importantly, demonstrate that racial composition has larger effects on white and Latinx parents’ preferences compared with white and Latinx students and smaller effects on black parents compared with black students. To ensure results were not an artifact of experimental conditions, I validate findings using administrative data on New York City families’ actual school choices in 2013. Both analyses establish that families express heterogenous racialized school preferences.

Effect of Neutral Conditioning on Racial Attitudes of Children

1975 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 695-701 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas S. Parish ◽  
Robert S. Fleetwood ◽  
Kingsley J. Lentz
Keyword(s):  
Classical Conditioning ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Kindergarten Children ◽  
American People ◽  
Racial Attitude ◽  
Attitude Scales

The purpose of this experiment was to test the effectiveness of classical conditioning procedures in reducing negative evaluative responses, i.e., attitudes, toward pictures of Afro-American people. Ss were 73 Euro-American kindergarten children who received either 0, 1, 4, or 8 conditioning sessions of 36 pairings of the color black with neutral words. Two racial attitude scales were employed to measure amount of change in Ss' racial attitudes after exposure to the conditioning procedures. Parish's (1972) Revised PRAM II did not detect any change, but Williams' (1971) PRAM II demonstrated a significant reduction in anti-Afro-American attitudes for those Ss who received 8 conditioning sessions.

scholarly journals Determinants and Consequences of Survey Respondents' Social Desirability Beliefs about Racial Attitudes

Methodology ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 125-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Stocké
Keyword(s):  
Social Desirability ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Racial Attitude ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
German Sample ◽  
The Social ◽  
Attitude Reports

Abstract. In this article, we first analyze the respondents' beliefs about the social desirability of ten racial attitude items from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS). We found these beliefs, which serve as the basis for the incentives for social desirability (SD) bias, to differ according to the respondents' sex, age, and education, as well as for the analyzed attitude items. Second, we found that these incentive differences, observed in our urban West-German sample, predicted the attitude answers of respondents from the nationwide ALLBUS survey in 1996. This effect was, furthermore, stronger for respondents with congruent characteristics. Our results suggest (1) that the ALLBUS data about the analyzed topic are susceptible to SD bias, (2) that particular items are more strongly affected in this respect, and (3) that differences in the racial attitude reports between certain groups of respondents may only be the result of differently strong SD bias.

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