Old-fashioned racism and symbolic racism are theoretically and empirically distinct constructs

Evidence

Old-fashioned racism was distinguished from symbolic racism both theoretically and empirically, according to factor analyses described later. In the 1986 NES only: (a) the races are different due to a divine plan, and (b) blacks come from a less able race. In the 1994 GSS only: (c) laws against marriages between blacks and whites; (d) blacks shouldn’t push themselves where they are not wanted; (e) white people have a right to keep blacks out of their neighborhoods; (f) objections to sending your children to a school where half of the children are black; (g) voting for a black president; (h) blacks have worse jobs, income, and housing because they have less inborn ability to learn. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3632

First, is symbolic racism really a coherent and internally consistent psychological construct? We conclude that symbolic racism is best interpreted as a single logically and psychologically consistent belief system. It is expressed in terms of two slightly different, but highly correlated attributional variants, and in that sense, the present analyses offer evidence of some differentiation within that belief system. But they seem to reflect the same underlying psychological dimension. Most important, symbolic racism is sufficiently internally coherent that all of its subparts have nearly identical effects on racial policy preferences. Second, does symbolic racism only artifactually predict racial policy preferences because measures of both share the same content (i.e., opposition to an expansive federal government)? On empirical test, this initially plausible speculation does not explain away the effects of symbolic racism. The purged items have, however, been eliminated from the new symbolic racism scale in recognition of the interpretive complications they pose (Henry and Sears 2002). Third, we found that symbolic racism is a distinctive belief system, rather than simply borrowing elements from other more traditional constructs widely used to understand race and politics among whites: conservative ideology, individualism, antiegalitarianism, and old-fashioned racism. It is a psychologically important construct in its own right. — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 217

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what ‘old-fashioned racism’ measures operationally versus symbolic racism.
• SHARE: The item ‘voting for a black president’ being classed as old-fashioned racism in 1994 is a dated, striking tidbit for someone working on survey design.
• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s symbolic-racism measurement concern: the authors empirically test and rebut the claim that the scale shares content with (i.e., is confounded with) the political outcomes it predicts — exactly the conceptual-overlap question the reader flagged. — connects to: Early and recent symbolic racism studies both measured the same four themes — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 17; Distinct consequences indicate whether symbolic-racism variants are truly separate constructs. — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 89; Symbolic racism’s discriminant validity from allied constructs is empirically testable — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 147 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: The ‘purged items’ phrase implies earlier scale items overlapped with federal-government opposition; worth finding what Henry and Sears 2002 purged and whether dropping them changed predictive patterns toward threat-based outcomes.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3632; Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 217