Symbolic racism has survived empirical tests of its critiques

Evidence

Symbolic racism was originally inductively derived to describe public opinion, and so not rigorously conceptualized. For this reason, and partly as a result of the popularity of the Reagan era’s market-based political conservatism, the idea of symbolic racism came under vigorous attack (e.g., Sniderman & Tetlock, 1986). Overall, however, those critiques of the symbolic racism concept have not been strongly supported once tested empirically (for reviews, see Hutchings & Valentino, 2004; Krysan, 2000; Sears & Henry, in press). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2177

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Symbolic racism measurement is internally coherent and unified. — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 123; Symbolic racism’s discriminant validity from allied constructs is empirically testable — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 147; Response biases fail to explain symbolic racism’s predictive findings — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 227 (+1 more)