Dog-whistle appeals mobilize racially resentful white liberals, not conservatives

Evidence

Our findings suggest that implicit racial appeals can harness racial resentment to influence policy views, though specifically among racially resentful white liberals. That dog-whistle effects would be concentrated among liberals was not predicted in advance, but this finding appears across two experiments testing effects of racial appeals in policy domains—welfare and gun control—that differ in the extent and ways they have been previously racialized. We also find evidence that the same group occasionally responded to explicit racial appeals even though these appeals were recognized as racially insensitive. We conclude by discussing implications for contemporary American politics, presenting representative survey data showing that racially resentful, white liberals were particularly likely to switch from voting for Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016. — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 11

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why would racial dog-whistles work on resentful liberals but not resentful conservatives? The authors flag the finding as unpredicted — the mechanism (perhaps liberals lack prior racialized schema so the cue reframes rather than confirms) is worth chasing.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s research question about threat-hardened beliefs backfiring and the partisan asymmetry of racial messaging — directly relevant to whether ‘rational correction’ does different things across the ideological divide. — connects to: Dog whistles activate latent racial prejudice while evading egalitarian norms — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 5; Implicit racial appeals mobilize resentment among liberals as well as conservatives — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 56; Subtly racialized appeals mobilize high-resentment liberals but leave moderates and conservatives unmoved. — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 77 (+5 more)
• CANDY: The reversal — that the stigmatizing group for racial resentment effects is liberals, contra the stereotype that such resentment ‘really lives’ on the right — is a genuinely surprising table-turning finding.

Related

• Liberal whites’ racial resentment is harnessed by racial appeals across ideologically opposed policy domains. (similarity 0.93)
• Racial appeals intensify racial-attitude influence on gun attitudes among liberals, not conservatives. (similarity 0.91)
• Implicit racial appeals mobilize resentment among liberals as well as conservatives (similarity 0.90)
• Subtly racialized appeals mobilize high-resentment liberals but leave moderates and conservatives unmoved. (similarity 0.88)
• Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer — Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle? Experimental Evidence That Racial Resentment and Political Ideology Condition Responses to Racially Encoded Messages (similarity 0.88)
• Racially resentful white liberals number about ten million and may be decisive voters. (similarity 0.88)
• Dog-whistle effects may cut opposite ways across ideology (similarity 0.87)
• Implicit racial appeals boosted liberal support for gun control (similarity 0.86)
• Racial resentment predicts switching to Trump mainly among white liberals. (similarity 0.86)
• Racially encoded messages backfire among moderates high in racial resentment. (similarity 0.85)
• Explicit and implicit racial cues boost racial resentment equally in whites (similarity 0.85)
• Prior exposure to racialized elite cues hardens opposite positions against novel racial appeals. (similarity 0.84)
• Implicit racial appeals produce an opposite-of-predicted backfire effect among low-resentment moderates. (similarity 0.83)
• White liberals high in racial resentment switched to Trump at probabilities above fifty percent. (similarity 0.82)
• Racial appeals do not generally amplify the effect of racial attitudes on welfare support (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Implicit racial appeals mobilize resentment among liberals as well as conservatives #corroborates (0.95) — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 56
• Subtly racialized appeals mobilize high-resentment liberals but leave moderates and conservatives unmoved. #corroborates (0.90) — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 77
• Racial appeals intensify racial-attitude influence on gun attitudes among liberals, not conservatives. #exemplifies (0.90) — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 166
• Liberal whites’ racial resentment is harnessed by racial appeals across ideologically opposed policy domains. #expands (0.85) — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 172
• Antidiversity rhetoric attracts status-threatened Whites toward the most extreme candidate #complicates (0.75) — Brenda Major and Alison Blodorn and Gregory Major Blascovich, The threat of increasing diversity, 18