Racial appeals intensify racial-attitude influence on gun attitudes among liberals, not conservatives.

Evidence

Instead, we found that implicit racial appeals heightened the influence of racial attitudes on support for gun control among liberals specifically. Whereas in Study 1 we found this effect for the racial resentment measure of racial prejudice, in Study 2 we found this effect for both racial resentment and explicit racial prejudice measures. In addition, we found that explicit racial appeals also heightened the influence of racial resentment on support for gun control among liberals. Although in our previous study we found some limited evidence that explicit appeals increase the strength of racial resentment on welfare evaluations among liberals, we found statistically reliable evidence of this effect for support for gun control. — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 166

Categorization

• QUESTION: The study shows the dog-whistle effect landing on liberals rather than the intended conservative target — is this evidence that the mechanism is psychological activation of underlying resentment wherever it exists, not ideological rejection of the cue?
• XREF: Strikingly contradicts the reader’s assumption that racially-encoded threats harden conviction asymmetrically on the right; suggests high-resentment liberals respond to the same cues. — connects to: Dog-whistle appeals mobilize racially resentful white liberals, not conservatives — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 11; Gun control is racialized such that racial resentment decreases support for it. — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 98; Implicit racial appeals boosted liberal support for gun control — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 169 (+1 more)

Related

• Implicit racial appeals boosted liberal support for gun control (similarity 0.95)
• Liberal whites’ racial resentment is harnessed by racial appeals across ideologically opposed policy domains. (similarity 0.91)
• Gun control is racialized such that racial resentment decreases support for it. (similarity 0.91)
• Dog-whistle appeals mobilize racially resentful white liberals, not conservatives (similarity 0.91)
• Implicit racial appeals mobilize resentment among liberals as well as conservatives (similarity 0.88)
• Subtly racialized appeals mobilize high-resentment liberals but leave moderates and conservatives unmoved. (similarity 0.86)
• Racially encoded messages backfire among moderates high in racial resentment. (similarity 0.84)
• Prior exposure to racialized elite cues hardens opposite positions against novel racial appeals. (similarity 0.83)
• Implicit racial appeals produce an opposite-of-predicted backfire effect among low-resentment moderates. (similarity 0.83)
• Explicit and implicit racial cues boost racial resentment equally in whites (similarity 0.83)
• Racial appeals do not generally amplify the effect of racial attitudes on welfare support (similarity 0.83)
• 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 0.82)
• Dog-whistle effects may cut opposite ways across ideology (similarity 0.82)
• Explicit racial appeals fail to shift welfare support whereas implicit racial cues succeed. (similarity 0.81)
• Racially resentful white liberals number about ten million and may be decisive voters. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Implicit racial appeals boosted liberal support for gun control #corroborates (0.95) — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 169
• Implicit racial appeals mobilize resentment among liberals as well as conservatives #expands (0.82) — Rachel Wetts and Robb Willer, Who Is Called by the Dog Whistle?…, 56