Symbolic racism scales may measure opposition to big government, not racial attitudes.

Evidence

To address this “common-content” critique, we purge symbolic racism scales of items that might partly reflect opposition to big government. If content overlap explains the effects of symbolic racism on racial policy preferences, the purged scale should have markedly reduced effects. Also, if symbolic racism has “expropriated” explanatory variance that more properly belongs to opposition to big government, use of the purged scale should allow that variance to return to its proper home, in the form of increased coefficients for nonracial conservatism. — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 28

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s research on whether threat perception is measured distinctly from the political attitudes it predicts. The ‘common-content’ purge parallels the concern about symbolic racism scales sharing content with political-conservatism outcomes. — connects to: Symbolic racism scales measure a distinct attitude rather than mere conservatism — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 192; Symbolic racism is not reducible to political conservatism — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2179; Symbolic racism explains racial policy preferences independent of conservatism. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2179 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: If purging the scale of big-government-content items reduces its effect on policy preferences, does that vindicate the measurement critique or just confirm that racism and small-government ideology genuinely corrlate in the electorate?
• DEFINE: Defines the methodological ‘expropriation of variance’ logic from Tetlock’s critique and how it is empirically tested.

Related

• Symbolic racism scales measure a construct distinct from the policy preferences they predict. (similarity 0.89)
• Symbolic racism scales measure a distinct attitude rather than mere conservatism (similarity 0.89)
• Some symbolic racism items overlap tautologically with the policy attitudes they predict (similarity 0.87)
• Symbolic racism explains racial policy preferences independent of conservatism. (similarity 0.86)
• Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears — The Conceptualization and Measurement of Symbolic Racism (similarity 0.85)
• Symbolic racism should outweigh both older racism and race-neutral values in shaping policy views (similarity 0.84)
• Response biases fail to explain symbolic racism’s predictive findings (similarity 0.84)
• Symbolic racism effects persist even after removing items about government programs (similarity 0.84)
• Symbolic racism’s discriminant validity from allied constructs is empirically testable (similarity 0.83)
• Controversy over symbolic racism measures is empirically moot since all variants predict equally. (similarity 0.83)
• Subscale choice does not alter symbolic racism’s effect on racial policy even after controls. (similarity 0.82)
• Distinct consequences indicate whether symbolic-racism variants are truly separate constructs. (similarity 0.82)
• Different racism constructs predict political outcomes unequally (similarity 0.81)
• Most whites endorse new symbolic racism beliefs while rejecting old-fashioned racism (similarity 0.81)
• Symbolic racism may decompose into separate attitude factors rather than one coherent belief system (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Symbolic racism is not reducible to political conservatism #contradicts (0.85) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2179
• Symbolic racism scales measure a distinct attitude rather than mere conservatism #qualifies (0.80) — Christopher Tarman and David O. Sears, The Conceptualization and Measurement…, 192
• Symbolic racism explains racial policy preferences independent of conservatism. #contradicts (0.80) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2179
• Symbolic racism should outweigh both older racism and race-neutral values in shaping policy views #contradicts (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3619
• Symbolic racism scales conflate real political threat with prejudice #exemplifies (0.75)