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

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.31234/osf.io/zvgb3 ◽

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.

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

Social Psychological and Personality Science ◽

10.1177/1948550617728995 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 9 (8) ◽

pp. 896-906 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

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.

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

Methodology ◽

10.1027/1614-2241.3.3.125 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 3 (3) ◽

pp. 125-138 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

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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Underrepresentation and the Perception of Others’ Racial Attitudes

Social Psychological and Personality Science ◽

10.1177/1948550618788855 ◽

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.

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SOCIALLY DESIRABLE REPORTING AND THE EXPRESSION OF BIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS OF RACE

Du Bois Review Social Science Research on Race ◽

10.1017/s1742058x19000195 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 439-455 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Ann Morning ◽

Hannah Brückner ◽

Alondra Nelson

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Social Desirability ◽

Racial Inequality ◽

Racial Attitudes ◽

The United States ◽

Social Desirability Bias ◽

Highly Educated ◽

Black And White ◽

Unobtrusive Measure ◽

Racial Policy

AbstractIn recent decades, dramatic developments in genetics research have begun to transform not only the practice of medicine but also conceptions of the social world. In the media, in popular culture, and in everyday conversation, Americans routinely link genetics to individual behavior and social outcomes. At the same time, some social researchers contend that biological definitions of race have lost ground in the United States over the last fifty years. At the crossroads of two trends—on one hand, the post-World War II recoil from biological accounts of racial difference, and on the other, the growing admiration for the advances of genetic science—the American public’s conception of race is a phenomenon that merits greater attention from sociologists than it has received to date. However, survey data on racial attitudes has proven to be significantly affected by social desirability bias. While a number of studies have attempted to measure social desirability bias with regard to racial attitudes, most have focused on racial policy preferences rather than genetic accounts of racial inequality. We employ a list experiment to create an unobtrusive measure of support for a biologistic understanding of racial inequality. We show that one in five non-Black Americans attribute income inequality between Black and White people to unspecified genetic differences between the two groups. We also find that this number is substantially underestimated when using a direct question. The magnitude of social desirability effects varies, and is most pronounced among women, older people, and the highly-educated.

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Relation of Racial Attitudes to Sociometric Choices among Second Grade Children

Psychological Reports ◽

10.2466/pr0.1975.37.2.547 ◽

1975 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 547-554 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Paul Alexander Mabe ◽

John E. Williams

Keyword(s):

Public School ◽

Young Children ◽

School Children ◽

Racial Attitudes ◽

Choice Behavior ◽

Racial Bias ◽

Second Grade ◽

Racial Attitude ◽

Grade School ◽

Attitude Measure

This paper reports the findings of a study of the relation of racial attitudes to interpersonal choice behavior among second grade school children. Children (32 Euro-American and 20 Afro-American) who comprised two intact classrooms in an integrated public school were administered the Preschool Racial Attitude Measure (PRAM II) and a sociometric procedure which asked them to choose classmates as associates for three different activities. For all subjects, a correlation of .52 was obtained between the degree of pro-Euro/anti-Afro bias displayed on PRAM II and the frequency of choice of Euro-American associates. There was some evidence of less racial bias and less frequent choice of Euro-associates in a racially balanced classroom than in a classroom which was predominantly Euro-American. It was concluded that the study supported the validity of the PRAM II procedure as a method for assessing racial attitudes in young children.

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Implicit Racial Attitude Measures in Black Samples: IAT, Subliminal Priming, and Implicit Black Identification

Political Science and Politics ◽

10.1017/s1049096513000644 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 46 (03) ◽

pp. 550-552 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Byron D'Andra Orey ◽

Thomas Craemer ◽

Melanye Price

Keyword(s):

Racial Identity ◽

Social Desirability ◽

Presidential Election ◽

Racial Attitudes ◽

Black Identity ◽

Racial Attitude ◽

Group Solidarity ◽

Linked Fate ◽

Black Racial Identity ◽

Attitude Measures

One of the shortcomings of the implicit racial attitudes literature is that it relies almost exclusively on white subjects. Arguably, there are two possible reasons for this. First, these measures were created to address issues of social desirability among whites who harbor negative racial attitudes toward blacks. Second, social desirability pressures and antiblack affect were not viewed as significant among black respondents (see Craemer 2008). This assumption is problematic because it treats black racial attitudes as a monolith. Rather than examining black racial opinion as a complicated and multivalenced set of evaluations about their own group and others, there has been an over emphasis on measures of group solidarity (e.g., linked fate). Understandably, bloc voting and cohesive policy opinions have partially justified this focus; however, the black community is more diverse than presidential election turnout suggests. Price (2009) argues that linked fate, the most common measure for black racial identity, is not adequately problematized as a potentially positive or negative measure of psychological attachment. Here, we hope to build on this literature by using an implicit black identity measure.

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