The Relations Among Explicit Prejudice Measures: Anti-Black Affect and Perceptions of Value Violation as Predictors of Symbolic Racism and Attitudes Toward Racial Policies

Abstract

In the study of racial prejudice in America, symbolic racism (and its close cousin, racial resentment) has been especially successful at predicting evaluations of race-related policies, evaluations of African-American politicians, voting behavior, and much more. This paper tests a proposal made by the theory of symbolic racism about the origin of racial prejudice: that symbolic racism is a blend of anti-Black affect and the perception that Black people violate traditional American values. Analyzed using a new approach that more fully meets the conceptualization of value-violation beliefs than in past research, data from college students and from a representative national sample of Americans disconfirmed the blend hypothesis. Instead, the data are consistent with a mediational chain: beliefs that Black people violate traditional values mediate the effect of anti-Black affect on responses to symbolic racism items, which, in turn, shape people’s attitudes toward racial policies. Thus, the previously suggested “blending” of proposed ingredients appears to be mediational rather than interactive or synergistic. These findings cast new light on the origins of symbolic racism.