The Effect of Diversity Ideology on the Perception of Political Candidates Varying By Race

Previous research on person perception has examined how stereotypes can affect people’s judgments of outgroup members. Research has also shown that ideology is related to prejudice and judgments about outgroups. In the current study, we examine how judgments of outgroup members are affected by a colorblind ideology versus a multicultural ideology. In Study 1, we had a national sample of participants recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (n = 107) rate a fictional Black and White candidate on judgments related to political qualities and personal traits and complete explicit attitude measures. Results indicated that colorblind attitudes led to more negative political quality ratings of Black candidates. In Study 2, participants (n = 117) were randomly assigned to read a colorblind prime, a multicultural prime, or no prime (control condition). The diversity ideology manipulation in Study 2 had no effect on Black candidate ratings, but explicit attitudes toward blacks did have an effect. Promoting and endorsing political messages that minimize or undervalue the differences of outgroup members and holding unfavorable attitudes toward Blacks create more obstacles for Black candidates to overcome. The Perception of Political Candidates 3 The Effect of Ideology on the Perception of Political Candidates Varying By Race Previous research on person perception has examined how stereotypes can affect people’s judgments of outgroup members. Research has also shown that ideology is related to prejudice and judgments about outgroups. In the current study, we examine how judgments of outgroup members are affected by a colorblind ideology versus a multicultural ideology. We focused on politics because there is not enough research examining the effects of cultural ideologies that people hold on how they evaluate Black political candidates. This study is important because it will shine more light on some of the obstacles that Black politicians must overcome when trying to win over White voters. Person Perception, Explicit Attitudes, and Racial Stereotypes Person perception can be described as a perceiver’s ability to distinguish the traits and states of others (Bruner & Tagiuri, 1954). When the perceiver receives sensory signals from social targets and contextual stimuli, they are converted into meaningful representations (Fiske & Macrae, 2012). An attitude is a positive or negative summary evaluation of a percept that is linked to a memory of the object of evaluation (Fazio, 1986; Fazio, Chen, McDonel, & Sherman, 1982; Fiske & Macrae, 2012, p.166). The present study will be examining the effects of explicit attitudes, or attitudes which are derived from intentional reflective processes (Strack & Deutsch, 2004), on person perception. Stereotypes have been described as cognitive components of prejudiced attitudes (Harding Proshansky, Kutner, & Chein, 1969; Secord & Backman, 1974), thus attitudes and stereotypes are two distinct cognitive structures with overlapping features (Devine, 1989). According to a theoretical dissociation model presented in Devine’s (1989) research, racial stereotypes are more accessible than racial attitudes because of their longer history of activation. The Perception of Political Candidates 4 There is ample research showing that stereotypes are established in memory from a young age, before they are able to be critically evaluated (e.g. Proshansky, 1966; Porter, 1971). In order to establish personal beliefs or attitudes, one is required to assess the congruence or conflict of an already established stereotype, then either accept or reject it. When presented with a target of some particular group or race, that group membership primes or activates the corresponding stereotype in the memory of the perceiver (e.g. Smith & Branscombe, 1984; Wyer & Srull, 1981). The activated stereotype can then impact how the target is perceived based on his group membership. Effects of Racial Stereotypes and Attitudes in Politics The election of the first Black president allowed for an opportune chance for researchers to study the effects of stereotypes and explicit attitudes on voting behavior and the perception of a Black political candidate. Research analyzing the effects of negative racial stereotypes on voting behavior and political preferences has shown that the 2008 Obama campaign was most affected by these stereotypes, where other prominent democratic candidates were unaffected (Piston, 2010). Racist attitudes were also studied to determine their effects on the Obama elections and the years between them. Tesler (2012) found that old fashioned racist attitudes, characterized by overt hostility, derogatory beliefs, and social distance (Devine, Plant, & Blair, 2001, pg. 201), did not affect party identification or partisan voting behavior for years prior to the 2008 elections, but they were able to predict partisanship, presidential vote intention, and congressional vote intention in the years immediately following the election. Counterintuitively, the election of the first African American president allowed for outdated modes of prejudiced attitudes to resurge and have an effect on people’s political preferences (Tesler, 2012). Pasek et al. (2014) also determined that levels of explicit prejudiced attitudes rose between 2008 and The Perception of Political Candidates 5 2012, but that evaluations of Obama became disconnected from attitudes towards Blacks as time went on. When examining how the perception of Black candidates affects their evaluations by voters, Jacobsmeier (2014) showed that white participants tend to perceive Black candidates as more liberal than White candidates with similar policy positions. This can create an indirect impact on voting decisions because these race-based misperceptions. Similar work has confirmed that the race of a candidate affects how their ideologies are perceived (McDermott, 1998; Terkildsen, 1993), even when the Black candidate is identical to a White one (Sigelman, Sigelman, Walkosz, Nitz, 1995). In addition to political ideology, the perception of political qualities associated with a candidate can be manipulated based on his race, where Black candidates are perceived as less experienced than their White opponent when explicit bias is higher (Weaver 2012). Diversity Ideologies According to Rattan and Ambady (2013), diversity ideologies are defined as “people’s beliefs and practices regarding diversity. ” They present colorblindness and multiculturalism as diversity ideologies which can be used to understand intergroup bias and conflict. The colorblind ideology argues that group distinctions should be downplayed in order to foster equality. The focus is on treating people the same, as individuals, instead of assigning them to a certain outgroup. On the other hand, multicultural ideology does the opposite. Here, group membership should be recognized and valued in order to foster equality and diversity (Rattan & Ambady, 2013; Sasaki & Vorauer, 2013). Continued research has shown that explicit racial bias, in terms of preference for Whites over Blacks, is significantly greater in participants endorsing colorblind ideologies (Richeson & The Perception of Political Candidates 6 Nussbaum, 2004). In-group positivity is also higher in this condition when compared to the multiculturalism condition (Ryan, Hunt, Weible, Peterson, & Casas, 2007). Similarly, multiculturalism endorsement has predicted less in-group bias and ethnocentrism (Ryan et al., 2007), but more stereo-typicality only when perceived threat to group values is high (Morrison, Plaut, & Ybarra, 2010). However, Whites with lower in-group identification are less prejudiced in response to multiculturalism (Morrison, Plaut, &Ybarra, 2010). Because the multiculturalism ideology emphasizes valuing the characteristics that make outgroup members different, group differences are stressed and stereotyping increases. However, in-group positivity and ethnocentrism decrease with the endorsement of this ideology because the things that make other’s group membership unique is valued relative to one’s own. While stereotyping may increase in this condition, it brings more positive evaluations of outgroups (Wolsko, Park & Judd, 2006). The colorblind ideology stresses the minimization of group differences, resulting in less stereotyping as outgroups are perceived as more similar to in-groups. In fact, when there is high intergroup conflict, colorblind ideologies reported lower levels of prejudice (Correll, Park, & Smith, 2008). At the same time, because group differences are not valued, there will be a bias toward ethnocentrism and White in-group preferences (Richeson & Naussbaum, 2004) as the importance of diversity is not stressed. Research has demonstrated that colorblind ideology can be manipulated and can affect judgments about other individuals. For example, exposure to the multicultural ideology reduced bias when responding towards minority outgroups (Richeson & Nussbaum, 2003). In Wolsko’s et al. (2000) ideology manipulation, participants were assigned to one of three conditions. In the first, participants were presented with information in support of colorblind ideals. The second condition had a multicultural emphasis, and the last was a control condition. Wolsko, Park, Judd, The Perception of Political Candidates 7 and Wittenbrink (2000) found that participants in the colorblind ideology condition showed a reduction in in-group positivity and low levels of explicit stereo-typicality of Blacks when compared to the control. Participants in the multicultural condition showed lowered in-group positivity and higher levels of expressed stereo-typicality of Blacks. It is important to note that while stereo-typicality was higher in the multicultural condition, there was also an increase in the recognition of positive traits of Blacks (Wolsko et al. 2000). Gutierrez and Unzueta (2010) examined the effect of interethnic ideologies on the likabil