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Month: December 2021

By Posted on Posted in Evolution 2 Comments

I posted to OSF data, code, and a report for my unpublished "Public perceptions of human evolution as explanations for racial group differences" [sic] project that was from a survey that YouGov ran for me in 2017, using funds from Illinois State University New Faculty Start-up Support and the Illinois State University College of Arts and Sciences. The report describes results from preregistered analyses, but below I'll highlight key results.

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The key item asked participants whether God's design and/or evolution, or neither, helped cause a particular racial difference:

Some racial groups have [...] compared to other racial groups. Select ALL of the reasons below that you think help cause this difference:
□ Differences in how God designed these racial groups
□ Genetic differences that evolved between these racial groups
○ None of the above

Participants were randomly assigned to receive one racial difference in the part of the item marked [...] above. Below are the racial differences asked about, along with the percentage assigned to that item who selected only the "evolved" response option:

70% a greater risk for certain diseases
55% darker skin on average
54% more Olympic-level runners
49% different skull shapes on average
26% higher violent crime rates on average
24% higher math test scores on average
21% lower math test scores on average
18% lower violent crime rates on average

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Another item on the survey (discussed at this post) asked about evolution. The reports that I posted for these items removed all or a lot of the discussion and citation of literature from the manuscripts that I had submitted to journals but were rejected, in case I can use that material for a later manuscript.

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By Posted on Posted in Race No Comments

Social Forces published Wetts and Willer 2018 "Privilege on the Precipice: Perceived Racial Status Threats Lead White Americans to Oppose Welfare Programs", which indicated that:

Descriptive statistics suggest that whites' racial resentment rose beginning in 2008 and continued rising in 2012 (figure 2)...This pattern is consistent with our reasoning that 2008 marked the beginning of a period of increased racial status threat among white Americans that prompted greater resentment of minorities.

Wetts and Willer 2018 had analyzed data from the American National Election Studies, so I was curious about the extent to which the rise in Whites' racial resentment might be due to differences in survey mode, given evidence from the Abrajano and Alvarez 2019 study of ANES data that:

We find that respondents tend to underreport their racial animosity in interview-administered versus online surveys.

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I didn't find a way to reproduce the exact results from Wetts and Willer 2018 Supplementary Table 1 for the rise in Whites' racial resentment, but, like in that table, my analysis controlled for gender, age, education, employment status, marital status, class identification, income, and political ideology.

Using the ANES Time Series Cumulative Data File with weights for the full samples, my analysis detected p<0.05 evidence of a rise in Whites' mean racial resentment from 2008 to 2012, which matches Wetts and Willer 2018; this holds net of controls and without controls. But the p-values were around p=0.22 for the change from 2004 to 2008.

But using weights for the full samples compares respondents in 2004 and in 2008 who were only in the face-to-face mode, with respondents in 2012, some of whom were in the face-to-face mode and some of whom were in the internet mode.

Using weights only for the face-to-face mode, the p-value was not under p=0.25 for the change in Whites' mean racial resentment from 2004 to 2008 or from 2008 to 2012, net of controls and without controls. The point estimates for the 2008-to-2012 change were negative, indicating, if anything, a drop in Whites' mean racial resentment.

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NOTES

1. For what it's worth, the weighted analyses indicated that Whites' mean racial resentment wasn't higher in 2008, 2012, or 2016, relative to 2004, and there was evidence at p<0.05 that Whites' mean racial resentment was lower in 2016 than in 2004.

2. Abrajano and Alvarez 2019 discussing their Table 2 results for feeling thermometers ratings about groups indicated that (p. 263):

It is also worth noting that the magnitude of survey mode effects is greater than those of political ideology and gender, and nearly the same as partisanship.

I was a bit skeptical that the difference in ratings about groups such as Blacks and illegal immigrants would be larger by survey mode than by political ideology, so I checked Table 2.

The feeling thermometer that Abrajano and Alvarez 2019 discussed immediately before the sentence quoted above involved illegal immigrants; that analysis had coefficients of -2.610 for internet survey mode, but coefficients of 6.613 for Liberal, -1.709 for Conservative, 6.405 for Democrat, and -8.247 for Republican. So the liberal/conservative difference is 8.322 and the Democrat/Republican difference is 14.652, compared to the survey mode difference is -2.610.

3. Dataset: American National Election Studies. 2021. ANES Time Series Cumulative Data File [dataset and documentation]. November 18, 2021 version. www.electionstudies.org

4. Data, code, and output for my analysis.

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By Posted on Posted in Evolution No Comments

I posted to OSF data, code, and a report for my unpublished "Public Perceptions of the Potential for Human Evolution" project that was from a survey that YouGov ran for me in 2017, using funds from Illinois State University New Faculty Start-up Support and the Illinois State University College of Arts and Sciences. The report describes results from preregistered analyses, but below I'll highlight key results.

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"Textbook" evolution

About half of participants received an item that asked about what I think might be reasonably described as a textbook description of evolution, in which one group is more reproductively successful than another group. The experimental manipulations involved whether the more successful group had high intelligence or low intelligence and whether the response options mentioned or did not mention "evolved".

Here is the "high intelligence" item, with square brackets indicating the "evolved" manipulation:

If, in the future, over thousands of years, people with high intelligence have more children and grandchildren than people with low intelligence have, which of the following would be most likely to happen?

  • The average intelligence of humans would [increase/evolve to be higher].
  • The average intelligence of humans would [remain the same/not evolve to be higher or lower].
  • The average intelligence of humans would [decrease/evolve to be lower].

Percentages from analyses weighted to reflect U.S. population percentages were 55% for the "increase" option (N=245) and 49% for the "evolve to be higher" option (N=260), with the residual category including other responses and non-responses. So about half of participants selected what I think is the intuitive response.

Here is the "low intelligence" item:

If, in the future, over thousands of years, people with low intelligence have more children and grandchildren than people with high intelligence have, which of the following would be most likely to happen?

  • The average intelligence of humans would [increase/evolve to be higher].
  • The average intelligence of humans would [remain the same/not evolve to be higher or lower].
  • The average intelligence of humans would [decrease/evolve to be lower].

Percentages from analyses weighted to reflect U.S. population percentages were 41% for the "decrease" option (N=244) and 35% for the "evolve to be lower" option (N=244), with the residual category including other responses and non-responses.

So, compared to the "high intelligence" item, participants were less likely (p<0.05) to select what I think is the intuitive response for the "low intelligence" item.

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Evolution due to separation into different environments

Participants not assigned to the aforementioned item received an item about whether the participant would expect differences to arise between groups separated into different environments, but the item did not include an indication of particular differences in the environments. The experimental manipulations were whether the item asked about intelligence or height and whether the response options mentioned or did not mention "evolved".

Here is the intelligence item, with square brackets indicating the "evolved" manipulation:

Imagine two groups of people. Each group has some people with high intelligence and some people with low intelligence, but the two groups have the same average intelligence as each other. If these two groups were separated from each other into different environments for tens of thousands of years and had no contact with any other people, which of the following would be more likely to happen?

  • After tens of thousands of years, the two groups would still have the same average intelligence as each other.
  • After tens of thousands of years, one group would [be/have evolved to be] more intelligent on average than the other group.

Percentages from analyses weighted to reflect U.S. population percentages were 32% for the "be more intelligent" option (N=260) and 29% for the "evolved to be more intelligent" option (N=236), with the residual category including other responses and non-responses.

Here is the height item:

Imagine two groups of people. Each group has some short people and some tall people, but the two groups have the same average height as each other. If these two groups were separated from each other into different environments for tens of thousands of years and had no contact with any other people, which of the following would be more likely to happen?

  • After tens of thousands of years, the two groups would still have the same average height as each other.
  • After tens of thousands of years, one group would [be/have evolved to be] taller on average than the other group.

Percentages from analyses weighted to reflect U.S. population percentages were 32% for the "be taller" option (N=240) and 32% for the "evolved to be taller" option (N=271), with the residual category including other responses and non-responses.

So not much variation in these percentages between the intelligence version of the item and the height version of the item. And only about 1/3 of participants indicated an expectation of intelligence or height differences arising between groups separated from each other into different environments for tens of thousands of years.

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Another item on the survey (eventually discussed at this post) asked about evolution and racial differences. The reports that I posted for these items removed all or a lot of the discussion and citation of literature from the manuscripts that I had submitted to journals but were rejected, in case I can use that material for a later manuscript.

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By Posted on Posted in Race No Comments

Criminology recently published Schutten et al 2021 "Are guns the new dog whistle? Gun control, racial resentment, and vote choice".

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I'll focus on experimental results from Schutten et al 2021 Figure 1. Estimates for respondents low in racial resentment indicated a higher probability of voting for a hypothetical candidate:

[1] when the candidate was described as Democrat, compared to when the candidate was described as a Republican,

[2] when the candidate was described as supporting gun control, compared to when the candidate was described as having a policy stance on a different issue, and

[3] when the candidate was described as not being funded by the NRA, compared to when the candidate was described as being funded by the NRA.

Patterns were reversed for respondents high in racial resentment. The relevant 95% confidence intervals did not overlap for five of the six patterns, with the exception being for the NRA funding manipulation among respondents high in racial resentment; eyeballing, it doesn't look like the p-value is under p=0.05 for that estimated difference.

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For the estimate that participants low in racial resentment were less likely to vote for a hypothetical candidate described as being funded by the NRA than for a hypothetical candidate described as not being funded by the NRA, Schutten et al 2021 suggested that this might reflect a backlash against of "the use of gun rights rhetoric to court prejudiced voters" (p. 20). But, presuming that the content of the signal provided by the mention of NRA funding is largely or completely racial, the "backlash" pattern is also consistent with a backlash against support of a constitutional right that many participants low in racial resentment might perceive to be disproportionately used by Whites and/or rural Whites.

Schutten et al 2021 conceptualized participants low in racial resentment as "nonracists" (p. 3) and noted that "recent evidence suggests that those who score low on the racial resentment scale 'favor' Blacks (Agadjanian et al., 2021)" (p. 21), but I don't know why the quotation marks around "favor" are necessary, given that there is good reason to characterize a nontrivial percentage of participants low in racial resentment as biased against Whites: for example, my analysis of data from the ANES 2020 Time Series Study indicated that about 40% to 45% of Whites (and about 40% to 45% of the general population) that fell at least one standard deviation under the mean level of racial resentment rated Whites lower on the 0-to-100 feeling thermometers than they rated Blacks, and Hispanics, and Asians/Asian-Americans. (This is not merely respondents rating Whites on average lower than Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians/Asian-Americans, but is rating Whites lower than each of these three groups).

Schutten et al 2021 indicated that (p. 4):

Importantly, dog whistling is not an attempt to generate racial prejudice among the public but to arouse and harness latent resentments already present in many Americans (Mendelberg, 2001).

Presumably, this dog whistling can activate the racial prejudice against Whites that many participants low in racial resentment have been comfortable expressing on feeling thermometers.

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NOTES

1. Schutten et al 2021 claimed that (p. 8):

If racial resentment is primarily principled conservatism, its effect on support for government spending should not depend on the race of the recipient.

But if racial resentment were, say, 70% principled ideology and 30% racial prejudice, racial resentment should still associate with racial discrimination due to the 30%.

And I think that it's worth considering whether racial resentment should also be described as being influenced by progressive ideology. If principled conservatism can cause participants to oppose special favors for Blacks, presumably a principled progressivism can cause participants to support special favors for Blacks. If so, it seems reasonable to also conceptualize racial resentment as the merging of principled progressivism and prejudice against Whites, given that both could presumably cause support for special favors for Blacks.

2. Schutten et al 2021 claimed that (p. 16):

The main concern about racial resentment is that it is a problematic measure of racial prejudice among conservatives but a suitable measure among nonconservatives (Feldman & Huddy, 2005).

But I think that major concerns about racial resentment are present even among nonconservatives. As I indicated in a prior blog post, I think that the best case against racial resentment has two parts. First, racial resentment captures racial attitudes in a way that is difficult if not impossible to disentangle from nonracial attitudes; that concern remains among nonconservatives, such as the possibility that a nonconservative would oppose special favors for Blacks because of a nonracial opposition to special favors.

Second, many persons at low racial resentment have a bias against Whites, and limiting the sample to nonconservatives if anything makes it more likely that the estimated effect of racial resentment is capturing the effect of bias against Whites.

3. Figure 1 would have provided stronger evidence about p<0.05 differences between estimates if plotting 83.4% confidence intervals.

4. [I deleted this comment because Justin Pickett (co-author on Schutten et al 2021) noted in review of a draft version of this post that this comment suggested an analysis that was reported in Schutten et al 2021, that an analysis be limited to participants low in racial resentment and an analysis be limited to participants high in racial resentment. Thanks to Justin for catching that.]

5. Data source for my analysis: American National Election Studies. 2021. ANES 2020 Time Series Study Preliminary Release: Combined Pre-Election and Post-Election Data [dataset and documentation]. July 19, 2021 version. www.electionstudies.org.

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