The Obama effect: Decreasing implicit prejudice and stereotyping

Abstract Using data from a national sample, we show that a measure of implicit racial bias--the race IAT--reveals significantly higher levels of anti-black bias than standard survey measures of racial prejudice and that there is only weak correspondence between implicit and explicit measures, thus replicating in this sample previous results from drop-in, web-based samples. In the same sample, we show that a candidate IAT measuring implicit preference for McCain or Obama yields strong explicit-implicit correspondence.

Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 2014

White Americans higher in prejudice were less likely to vote for Barack Obama than other Americans. Recent research also demonstrated that supporters and opponents of Mr. Obama engaged in skin tone biases, i.e., they perceive Mr. Obama's skin tone as lighter or darker in line with more positive or negative views of him. Across two studies we hypothesized that skin tone biases occur as a function of two independent sources: racial prejudice, which is always related to skin tone bias, and political partisanship, which is related to skin tone bias primarily during elections. Study 1 assessed perceptions of Mr. Obama's skin tone shortly before and after the 2008 Presidential election, and shortly after the first inauguration. Study 2 assessed perceptions in the middle of his first term, immediately prior to the 2012 Presidential election, and 1 year into his second term in office. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that partisan skin tone bias was limited to the election period, whereas prejudice-based skin tone biases occurred independent from any election. With the election of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States, a racial barrier fell: For the first time, an African American and a biracial individual had been elected to the highest office in the land. 1 However, as recent research demonstrates, Mr. Obama's election did not signify an end of racial bias with implicit and explicit racism being a major predictor as to whether voters supported

2004

Politics & Policy, 2001

Whites 'stereotypes about Black.4mericans. This paper examines the extent to which social group names that appear in political discourse, such as people on welfaret are mentally connected with Blacks. Computer-administered surveys. as used here, allow the researcher to employ two unobtrusive methods-response time measures and experimental manipulation of stimulus sequence-both invisible to research participants. This paper tests three hypotheses; in general, the findings support the first two. First. aspredicted. response times to people on welfare 'and $oar people. ' but not 'civil righ'ts protesters. ' are faster among participants already primed by having previously responded to 'Blacks'. Second, also as predicted. correlations between responses to 'Blacks *and to race-relatedstimuli are higher omong primed than unprimed participants. Question order has little impact on participants ' actual response to race-related groups. These results extend and replicate other findings. indicating that certain words and symbols in American politics are racially coded and thus invoke negative imagery of Blacks. Furthermore, these findings show the artiliry of novel survey methodr in tapping dimensions ofthe survey response that have received little scholarly attention to date. These methods include response-time data. variation of question ordering, and computeradministered surveys. "Race matters" -Cornel West (1 993). Nowhere does Cornel West's observation ring more true than in politics. In U.S. politics, racial attitudes continue to be an important influence on party identification, voting decisions, and policy preferences (

Political Psychology, 2013

In 2008, ANES included for the first time—along with standard explicit measures of old‐fashioned and symbolic racism—the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP), a relatively new implicit measure of racial attitudes. This article examines the extent to which four different measures of racial prejudice (three explicit and one implicit) predict public opinion during and after the 2008 election, including Americans' views towards several racial policy issues, their evaluations of, and feelings toward, Barack Obama, and their attitudes toward a Black president in general. Oversamples of African American and Latino respondents in the 2008 ANES enable us to broaden our tests of these measures beyond traditional White samples. We find that racial prejudice played an important role for all racial/ethnic groups but that the traditional explicit measures of racism are by far the stronger predictors for all of our dependent variables (compared to the new implicit measure) for both White and ...

Sociological Perspectives, 2014

The literature on descriptive representation indicates that the election of black political leaders may prompt white enmity. We assess this claim by examining the relationship between whites' racial attitudes and their likelihood of othering Barack Obama by labeling him as a Muslim and/or a noncitizen interloper. The findings reveal that both symbolic racial resentment and traditional racial attitudes are associated with othering Obama. In addition, the results reveal that the relationship between racial resentment and othering is substantially mediated by the use of seemingly nonracist frames based on emotional reactions and negative expectations about an Obama presidency. Conversely, much of the effect of belief in traditional antiblack stereotypes was transmitted directly to othering Obama without the use of justificatory frames. Despite claims of racial progress, our findings suggest that racial sentiments-both overt and symboliccontinue to play a major role in politics.

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Skin color is an explicit racial cue. Although there is strong evidence linking darker skin complexion to the activation of racial stereotypes and adverse societal outcomes, little is known about the extent to which this effect is in play during political campaigns. If white voters make use of this skin complexion cue, we would expect exposure to darker images of a minority candidate to result in a "dark-skin penalty" at the ballot box. We investigate the impact of skin complexion on support for Barack Obama at two different stages of the 2008 campaign: Study 1 occurred during the primary campaign and Study 2 during the closing stages of the general election. Our findings suggest that when citizens are still learning about a minority candidate's personal background, subtle changes in skin complexion can have an effect on evaluations of that candidate and that citizens with higher levels of implicit racial bias are less likely to prefer a darker-skinned minority candidate.

Research regarding the attitudinal antecedents of racially discriminating behavior is of particular importance as racial diversity in the United States continues to increase along with instances of intergroup violence and tension in the news. In a two-part experiment we examined racial attitudes as they relate to manipulations in environmental cues and subsequent behaviors. Specifically, we examined whether a subtle environmental manipulation in the form of viewing a positive and negative stereotypical interaction between minority race members in a two minute video segment was associated with a decrease in attitudinal racial bias measured using the Implicit Association Test and differences in subtle discrimination assessed via two subtle discriminatory behavior assessment techniques; a hypothetical budget cut questionnaire and the Lost Email Technique. Participants (N = 69) were recruited from the undergraduate population at the University of Rhode Island and randomized into the positive and negative video conditions. Trained research assistants welcomed participants into the laboratory and directed them to a computer on which to view the video. After viewing the respective videos, participants completed the Implicit Association Test (IAT), three self-report measures designed to obscure the purpose of the study, and a demographics questionnaire all on the same computer. The research assistants then acquired the participants' preferred email addresses, informed them the second half of the study would be sent via email, and introduced participants to the budget cut questionnaire disguised as a departmental requirement for researchers. Twenty-four hours later, the research assistants emailed a link to the second IAT from a pre specified Gmail account. The research assistants paired this email with the lost email sent from a URI.etal email address. This email was addressed (incorrectly) to either a common White or Black name informing the intended recipient that they had been awarded a prestigious scholarship to which they applied. Of interest was the response rate between the emails compared between positive and negative video groups and perceived White and Black recipient names. A series of one tailed t-tests and a logistic regression tested three hypotheses: 1) that the positive video would decrease racial bias on the IAT, 2) that the decrease in bias would remain 24-48 hours as measured by a second IAT, and 3) that the positive video would be related to a decrease in discriminatory behavior. Results revealed that the positive video condition (M = .4320, SD = .4105) significantly differed from the negative video condition (M = .6134, SD = .3533) on the first IAT, t (57) = 1.80, p = .0385, d = .4736. One tailed t-tests did not reveal significant differences between the positive and negative video group on the second IAT 24-48 hours later and on proposed budget cuts on our first behavioral measure. The logistic regression did not reveal a significant interaction effect between video condition, email race, and response rate. However, the logistic regression revealed a main effect that trended toward significance such that the email was more likely returned to the sender when it was addressed to a White name (51%) compared to a Black name (29%), β =-.33, p <.07, d = .69. Implications for educational purposes in a school setting are discussed. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to my advisor, Dr. Mark D. Wood. Without his understanding and empathy, this work would have been incalculably more difficult. His mentorship is unmatched. Thank you to the Thesis Committee, Dr.'s Paul Bueno de Mesquita and Donna Schwartz Barcott. Their time reviewing this information and serving on the committee is valued and appreciated. Thank you to Defense Chair, Dr. William Krieger. Thank you to the hard working research assistants: Sara and Kristen. Thank you to the University of Rhode Island, Department of Psychology and the URI Graduate School for their assistance completing this degree and for the opportunity to earn this degree. Thank you to my mother, Bonnie, my father, Stephen, and my brother, Brian, for their unwavering support. And last, but not least, thank you to my wonderful partner, Katie, who has patiently encouraged and supported me throughout this long and difficult process. v

There is strong evidence linking skin complexion to negative stereotypes and adverse real-world outcomes. We extend these findings to political ad campaigns, in which skin complexion can be easily manipulated in ways that are difficult to detect. Devising a method to measure how dark a candidate appears in an image, this paper examines how complexion varied with ad content during the 2008 presidential election campaign (study 1). Findings show that darker images were more frequent in negative ads—especially those linking Obama to crime—which aired more frequently as Election Day approached. We then conduct an experiment to document how these darker images can activate stereotypes, and show that a subtle darkness manipulation is sufficient to activate the most negative stereotypes about Blacks—even when the candidate is a famous counter-stereotypical exemplar—Barack Obama (study 2). Further evidence of an evaluative penalty for darker skin comes from an observational study measuring affective responses to depictions of Obama with varying skin complexion, presented via the Affect Misattribution Procedure in the 2008 American National Election Study (study 3). This study demonstrates that darker images are used in a way that complements ad content, and shows that doing so can negatively affect how individuals evaluate candidates and think about politics.

Journal of …, 2006