Implicit racial appeals drive welfare opposition through reduced deservingness perceptions

Evidence

In our first experiment, we found that participants who read an implicit racial appeal linking welfare usage to racial stereotypes of African Americans reported greater opposition to welfare programs than participants who read a control message. In addition, we found that this effect was partially mediated by decreased perceptions of welfare recipient deservingness when racial stereotypes were subtly cued. Finally, we found a three-way interaction between experimental condition, racial resentment, and political ideology suggesting this decreased support for welfare was driven by liberal participants high in racial resentment. — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 168

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s question about whether professed (egalitarian/liberal) conviction diverges from actual measured bias — here liberals high in racial resentment respond MORE, not less, to racially-encoded messages. — connects to: Explicit racial appeals fail to shift welfare support whereas implicit racial cues succeed. — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 78; Racial perceptions drive political passions independent of policy effectiveness — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2018; Cultural stereotypes about race and gender directly reduced welfare provision — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 98 (+9 more)

Related

• Explicit racial appeals fail to shift welfare support whereas implicit racial cues succeed. (similarity 0.88)
• Subtly racialized appeals mobilize high-resentment liberals but leave moderates and conservatives unmoved. (similarity 0.86)
• Racial appeals do not generally amplify the effect of racial attitudes on welfare support (similarity 0.85)
• Implicit racial appeals mobilize resentment among liberals as well as conservatives (similarity 0.84)
• Explicit and implicit racial cues boost racial resentment equally in whites (similarity 0.82)
• Implicit racial appeals produce an opposite-of-predicted backfire effect among low-resentment moderates. (similarity 0.81)
• National anti-welfare conservatism channeled prior racial resentment (similarity 0.79)
• Prior exposure to racialized elite cues hardens opposite positions against novel racial appeals. (similarity 0.78)
• Symbolic racism theory explains policy attitudes via moral values plus outgroup dislike (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Anti-welfare rhetoric disparaged Black recipients while ignoring White beneficiaries #exemplifies (0.83) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 980
• Cultural stereotypes about race and gender directly reduced welfare provision #exemplifies (0.82) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 98
• Symbolic racism explains racial policy preferences independent of conservatism. #expands (0.82) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2179
• Symbolic racism theory explains policy attitudes via moral values plus outgroup dislike #expands (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 144
• Racial perceptions drive political passions independent of policy effectiveness #expands (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2018
• Prejudice serves dual functions of lowering outgroup worth and boosting ingroup entitlement #expands (0.75)
• Prejudice motivates perceived group differences rather than emerging from them #expands (0.72) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 892
• Subtle racial attitudes stem from structural inequality plus perceived group threat #expands (0.72) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3437
• Response biases fail to explain symbolic racism’s predictive findings #corroborates (0.72) — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 227
• Consciously egalitarian values fail to prevent racially disparate behavior #expands (0.72)