Social desirability bias does not inflate symbolic racism’s link to policy views

Evidence

A second possibility is that social desirability could artificially inflate the association between symbolic racism and racial policy preferences, if it suppresses true racial antagonism on both sets of measures in correlated fashion. This too seems unlikely to explain our findings. For one thing, the most obvious expressions of racism (e.g., old-fashioned racism, blatant racial stereotypes, and the black feeling thermometer) should be suppressed even more than symbolic racism. However, they have far weaker associations with racial policy preferences than does symbolic racism (e.g., Hughes 1997; Sears et al. 1997). Also, nonwhite interviewers produced no stronger correlations between symbolic racism and racial policy preferences in the 1986 NES than did white interviewers, even though they presumably introduced stronger social desirability pressures. The average correlations between the six symbolic racism scales and the composite racial policy scale were identical (r = .55) for data gathered by the two sets of interviewers. — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 226

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the reader’s measurement-critique research question: it addresses whether the symbolic racism scale is distinguishable from the racial-policy outcomes it predicts, via sociable-desirability contamination. — connects to: Symbolic racism effects persist even after removing items about government programs — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 42; Response biases fail to explain symbolic racism’s predictive findings — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 227; Social dominance prejudice correlations survive controls for social desirability bias — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1049 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Contrasting with modern findings on racial resentment questionnaires, this older result (identical correlations regardless of interviewer race) deserves a replication check in a post-2008 administration.

Related

• Response biases fail to explain symbolic racism’s predictive findings (similarity 0.89)
• Social desirability bias makes present-day racial preference measurement difficult (similarity 0.88)
• Social desirability bias does not currently invalidate survey measures of racial attitudes. (similarity 0.86)
• Symbolic racism scales measure a construct distinct from the policy preferences they predict. (similarity 0.86)
• Symbolic racism outweighs egalitarian beliefs in shaping White racial policy views (similarity 0.85)
• Symbolic racism explains racial policy preferences independent of conservatism. (similarity 0.85)
• Symbolic racism scales measure a distinct attitude rather than mere conservatism (similarity 0.85)
• Symbolic racism should outweigh both older racism and race-neutral values in shaping policy views (similarity 0.84)
• Antiblack affect is a consistent, stable engine of symbolic racism across studies (similarity 0.84)
• Social dominance prejudice correlations survive controls for social desirability bias (similarity 0.84)
• Controversy over symbolic racism measures is empirically moot since all variants predict equally. (similarity 0.84)
• Symbolic racism measurement is internally coherent and unified. (similarity 0.84)
• Social desirability bias does not measurably invalidate prejudice survey measures (similarity 0.83)
• Symbolic racism’s discriminant validity from allied constructs is empirically testable (similarity 0.83)
• Symbolic racism effects persist even after removing items about government programs (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Social desirability bias does not currently invalidate survey measures of racial attitudes. #corroborates (0.95) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2200
• Social dominance prejudice correlations survive controls for social desirability bias #corroborates (0.90) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1049
• Overt self-reporting of prejudice is contaminated by social-desirability concerns #qualifies (0.85) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 269