About half of White respondents rate Blacks and Whites identically on prejudice measures

Evidence

At first blush they yield the expected results: in the 2000 NES, ingroup favoritism on the feeling thermometers (evaluating Whites more favorably than Blacks) was more common (37 percent) than is the reverse (10 percent), and the same was true on a composite stereotype index (59 percent vs. 8 percent). However, the number who failed to differentiate Whites and Blacks at all was almost as large as the number showing ingroup favoritism. On the thermometer scales, 53 percent of the Whites gave exactly the same response to both groups, as did an average of 50 percent on the stereotype scales. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2201

Categorization

• QUESTION: The roughly 50 percent who don’t differentiate may be masking prejudice, or may genuinely be non-prejudiced — the unknown reason undermines both readings of thermometer measures.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2201