The discriminant validity of symbolic racism

I have posted a working manuscript on symbolic racism here, with its appendix here. Comments are welcome and appreciated. I'll outline the manuscript below and give some background to the research.

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On 27 October 2012, a Facebook friend posted a link to an Associated Press report "AP poll: Majority harbor prejudice against blacks." I posted this comment about the report:

During the Facebook discussion, I noted that it not obvious that the implicit measurements indicate racism, given the data on implicit preferences among blacks:

Bob Somersby at the Daily Howler noticed that the AP report provided data disaggregated by political party but failed to provide data disaggregated by race:

Although Ross and Agiesta were eager to tell you how many Democrats, Republicans and independents were shown to hold "anti-black feelings," they never tell you how many black respondents “hold anti-black feelings” as well!

Why didn't our intrepid reporters give us that information? We can't answer that question. But even a mildly skeptical observer could imagine one possible answer:

If substantial percentages of black respondents were allegedly shown to "hold anti-black feelings," that would make almost anyone wonder how valid the AP's measures may be. It would undermine confidence in the professors—in those men of vast erudition, the orange-shoed fellows who still seem to think that Obama trailed in the national polling all through the summer of 2008.

David Moore at iMediaEthics posted data disaggregated by race that he retrieved from the lead author of the study: based on the same method used in the original report, 30 percent of white Americans implicitly held anti-white sentiments, and 43 percent of black Americans implicitly held anti-black sentiments. Moore discussed how this previously-unreported information alters interpretation of the study's findings:

It appears that racism, as measured by this process, is much more complicated than the news story would suggest. We cannot talk about the 56% of Americans with "anti-black" attitudes as being "racist," if we do not also admit that close to half of all blacks are also "racist" – against their own race.

If we accept the measures of anti-black attitudes as a valid indicator of racism, then we also have to accept the anti-white measures as racism.

Moore did not tell us the results for black respondents on the explicit measures of racism, so that's the impetus behind Study 2 of the working manuscript.

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The explicit racism measure discussed in the AP report is symbolic racism, also known as racial resentment. Instead of explaining what symbolic racism is, I'll show how symbolic racism is typically measured; items below are from the American National Election Studies, but there were more items in the study discussed in the AP report.

Symbolic racism is measured in the ANES based on whether a survey respondent agrees strongly, agrees somewhat, neither agrees nor disagrees, disagrees somewhat, or disagrees strongly with these four items:

1. Irish, Italians, Jewish and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.

2. Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class.

3. Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve.

4. It's really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites.

I hope that you can see why these are not really measures of explicit racism. Let's say that non-racist person A opposes special favors for all groups: that person would select the symbolic racist option for item 1, indicating a belief that blacks should work their way up without special favors. Person A is coded the same as a person B who opposes special favors for blacks because of person B's racism. So that's problem #1 with symbolic racism measures: the measures conflate racial attitudes and non-racial beliefs.

But notice that there is another problem. Let's say that person C underestimates the influence of slavery and discrimination on outcomes for contemporary blacks; person C will select a symbolic racism option for item 2, but is that racism? is that racial animosity? is that a reflection that a non-black person -- and even some black persons -- might not appreciate the legacy of slavery and discrimination? or is that something else? That's problem #2 with symbolic racism measures: it's not obvious how to interpret these measures.

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Researchers typically address problem 1 with control variables; the hope is that placing partisanship, self-reported ideology, and a few conservative values items into a regression sufficiently dilutes the non-racial component of symbolic racism so that the effect of symbolic racism can be interpreted as its racial component only.

In the first part of the working manuscript, I test this hope by predicting non-racial dependent variables, such as opposition to gay marriage. The idea of this test is that -- if statistical control really does sufficiently dilute the non-racial component of symbolic racism -- then symbolic racism should not correlate with opposition to gay marriage, because racism should not be expected to correlate with opposition to gay marriage; but -- if there is a correlation between symbolic racism and gay marriage -- then statistical control did not sufficiently dilute the non-racial component of symbolic racism.

The results indicate that a small set of controls often does not sufficiently dilute the non-racial component of symbolic racism, so results from symbolic racism research with a small set of controls should be treated skeptically. But a more extensive set of controls often does sufficiently dilute the non-racial component of symbolic racism, so we can place more -- but not complete -- confidence in results from symbolic racism research with an extensive set of controls.

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The way that I addressed problem #2 -- about how to interpret symbolic racism measures -- is to assess the effect of symbolic racism among black respondents. Results indicate that among blacks -- and even among a set of black respondents with quite positive views of their own racial group -- symbolic racism sometimes positively correlates with opposition to policies to help blacks.

Study 2 suggests that it is not legitimate for researchers to interpret symbolic racism among whites differently than symbolic racism among blacks, without some other information that can permit us to state that symbolic racism means something different for blacks and whites. Study 3 assesses whether there is evidence that symbolic racism means something different for blacks and whites.