White ingroup identity is politically inert while outgroup antagonism drives policy preferences

Evidence

In fact, “whiteness” appears not to be politically significant in America today. In recent research it has been indexed in terms of self-categorization as a White, a sense of White identity (using such items as “How often do you think of yourself as White?” or “How strongly do you identify with other Whites?”), or pro-White affect (using a feeling thermometer). In several NES and Los Angeles surveys, these variables have had small and usually nonsignificant correlations, averaging below r = 0.05, with either symbolic racism or racial policy preferences. In contrast, outgroup antagonism, as indexed by symbolic racism, almost invariably correlates with racial policy preferences at 0.40 or higher (Sears & Henry, in press). — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2192

Categorization

• QUESTION: This challenges the strong emphasis on ‘whiteness’ identity in neo-racism theories — worth chasing whether this finding holds across later decades given renewed white-identity politics post-2016.
• SEED: Potential essay angle: how a construct (white identity) can be theoretically central yet empirically near-zero in survey prediction — the gap between theorized and measured social identity.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2192
• XREF: connects to: Ethnic identification amplifies white support for anti-immigrant policies under diversity threat cues — Brenda Major and Alison Blodorn and Gregory Major Blascovich, The threat of increasing diversity: Why…, 48; Shrinking numerical majority makes White identity salient and politically mobilizing — Brenda Major and Alison Blodorn and Gregory Major Blascovich, The threat of increasing diversity: Why…, 68