Most White respondents show no ingroup favoritism on blatant thermometer 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. The usefulness of thermometer and stereotype measures is therefore uncertain, both because they are so blatant and because about half of the White respondents fail to differentiate Blacks and Whites on them for unknown (possibly social desirability) reasons. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2201

Categorization

• XREF: Questions the robustness of survey-based ingroup favoritism evidence used throughout the prejudice-psychology vault thread; half of Whites showing no differentiation is a striking floor. — connects to: Attitudes toward other minority groups were measured with averaged 100-point thermometer ratings — Chen-Bo Zhong, Adam D. Galinsky, and Miguel M. Unzueta, Negational racial identity and…, 32