Continuities in Support for Racial Equality, 1972 to 1976

Capitalizing upon the panel component of the 1972-1976 National Election Study, we explore change in white Americans' support for racial equality. Two general propositions regarding individual change are examined: frustration-aggression theory, which attributes change to the stresses and strains of private life; and realistic group conflict theory, which attributes change to the tangible threats blacks pose to whites' private interests. We find intermittent support for the first and virtually no support for the second. Much more impressive is the durability of opinion on racial equality, the insulation of racial opinion from the ostensibly powerful predicaments of private life. Donald R. Kinder is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan. Laurie A. Rhodebeck is Lecturer in the Department of Government and International Studies, University of Notre Dame. Data for this paper were provided by the Inter-University Consortium for Political Research, University of Michigan. The Consortium bears no responsibility for our interpretations or conclusions, nor do Shanto Iyengar, Steven Rosenstone, Blair Wheaton, or two anonymous reviewers, who offered valuable advice. Correspondence regarding this paper should be sent to Donald R. Kinder, Department of Political Science, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48106. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 46:195-215 ? 1982 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 0033-362X/82/0046-195/$2.50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.123 on Mon, 18 Jul 2016 05:47:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 196 KINDER AND RHODEBECK For all its political significance, public opinion on racial matters remains mysterious. Why do some whites grow more sympathetic toward racial equality while others become more hostile? What sorts of experiences enhance or relieve interracial tensions? By rummaging through the splawling literature, it is easy to find answers-but answers backed by persuasive evidence are hard to come by. These days especially, benign neglect applies rather well to theories of racial opinion. In a modest way, our paper begins to redress this neglect. Here we test a pair of eminently plausible and quite general theories: frustration-aggression theory, which ascribes change in whites' support for racial equality to the stresses and strains of their private lives; and realistic group conflict theory, which ascribes change to the threats blacks seem to pose to whites' tangible self-interests. Data well suited to test these two explanations we take from the panel component of the 1972-1976 National Election Study. Estimation proceeds via a maximum likelihood procedure, as described in detail below. The implications of our results-for an adequate social psychology of racial opinion and for an understanding of the political entanglements of race-are the business of the paper's final section. Two Theories of Opinion Change Frustration-aggression theory has its roots in Freud's familiar assertion that the frustrations of modern life lead inexorably to hostility. In Frustration and Aggression (1939), Dollard and his colleagues develop this point. According to their treatment of displacement, the frustrations whites experience in their private lives, though they have no manifest racial content, nevertheless take a racial form. In particular, we assume here that private frustrations feed political resistance. The trials and tribulations of whites' modern lives undermine the support they would otherwise lend to policies designed to bring about racial equality. Such indirect expressions of aggression serve, as Allport (1954:325) put it, "to soften the disappointments . . . of life." Research on displacement has concentrated on the frustrations associated with downward social mobility, with uneven results. Some researchers find the downwardly mobile to be disproportionately prejudiced (e.g., Bettelheim and Janowitz, 1964); others do not (e.g., Hodge and Treiman, 1966). The evidence is no better for the more general proposition that discontent in personal life contributes to racial hostility. Alienation and social isolation, economic grievances, worries over safety, concern for the quality of children's schoolingThis content downloaded from 157.55.39.123 on Mon, 18 Jul 2016 05:47:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SUPPORT FOR RACIAL EQUALITY, 1972-1976 197 none of these personal frustrations appears to drive racial prejudice (Campbell, 1971; Kinder and Sears, 1979; Sears and Kinder, 1971). So the empirical record of the displacement hypothesis is checkered. However, all of the evidence cited above is drawn from crosssectional comparisons.1 A better test of displacement requires panel evidence of the kind we marshal below. If the displacement hypothesis is correct, then whites who have run into serious difficulties in their private lives should grow increasingly hostile toward racial equality. In the panel tests that follow, we concentrate on two ostensibly powerful sources of frustration: economic adversity and vulnerability to crime and violence. We will see whether whites who have suffered economic dislocation or who feel increasingly unsafe on the streets of their own neighborhoods become less willing to support policies promoting racial equality. Realistic group conflict theory (Cummings, 1980; LeVine and Campbell, 1972; Rothbart, 1976), the second perspective on racial opinion examined here, locates the causes of racial prejudice in the competition between blacks and whites for scarce resources. Competitive interdependence produces the realistic perception of threat, which in turn leads to hostility directed at members of the threatening group. Thus whites develop antagonistic attitudes toward blacks to the extent that blacks are seen to threaten their private interests. Plausible as realistic group theory may seem, its empirical support turns out to be anemic. There is not much evidence one way or the other, and what there is often runs counter to expectation. Moreover, tests of realistic group conflict theory are almost always indirect, usually invite alternative interpretations, and in any case are of dubious generality (this literature is reviewed in Ashmore and DelBoca, 1976). Here we try to avoid these shortcomings. Again using panel evidence, we examine the responsiveness of opinion toward racial equality to the tangible threats that blacks seem to pose to whites' private interests. In particular, we will see whether whites who think themselves besieged by black street crime, or menanced by neighborhood desegregation, or personally implicated in racial busing schemes, become less enthusiastic about racial equality. Model Specification and Estimation Procedure Tests of social psychological propositions regarding change in an individual's support for racial equality require individual-level eviI Some support for the displacement hypothesis has been furnished by experimental research. However, such experiments have proven difficult to replicate. For a capable review of this research, see Ashmore and DelBoca, 1976. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.123 on Mon, 18 Jul 2016 05:47:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 198 KINDER AND RHODEBECK dence, preferably longitudinal. With panel evidence provided by the 1972-1976 National Election Study we will assess the stability of whites' racial opinions and, of greater interest, appraise how adequately the frustration-aggression and realistic group conflict theories account for deviations from stability. In schematic form, the model that expresses both these interests appears in Figure 1. Stability in racial opinions at the individual level is represented by the arrow from Racial Equality72 to Racial Equality76. Tests of the displacement and the realistic group conflict theories are represented in the diagram by the arrow running from Personal Experience to Racial Equality76. Together, the two theories suggest three types of personal experience that should prompt whites to reduce their support for racial equality: economic dislocation, vulnerability to crime and violence, and exposure to racial threats. In the analysis that follows, we will examine each separately.2 We will also treat separately the various components of support for racial equality. Table 1 presents the questions used to measure such e72 e72 * e e76 e76 ... e 721 722 ... 72 761 762 ... 76, Fg R aci al Equaliey72 e Rt Racal EqualitytY| |Personal Experience Figure 1. The Impact of Personal Experience on Support for Racial Equality 2 The reader may legitimately object to this procedure. Taking up these three types of experience one at a time raises the specter of specification error: that because we ignore the simultaneous effects of the three, our estimates of each taken separately are necessarily biased. In principle, we agree completely. But in our case, estimates based on separate analyses do not differ from those based on a more elaborate analysis that takes into account simultaneous effects. Consequently, for the sake of presentational clarity, we have chosen to present the results in three parts. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.123 on Mon, 18 Jul 2016 05:47:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SUPPORT FOR RACIAL EQUALITY, 1972-1976 199 Table 1. White Support for Racial Equality, 1972 and 1976