That Red and Blue divide in our national politics may be more of a Black and White one, suggest studies of political behavior. Society for Personality and Social Psychology had a conference last week that showcased several provocative psychological studies about the nature of political belief.
Some highlights from the studies:
Emory University psychologist Drew Westen put self-identified Democratic and Republican partisans in brain scanners and asked them to evaluate negative information about various candidates. Both groups were quick to spot inconsistency and hypocrisy — but only in candidates they opposed.When presented with negative information about the candidates they liked, partisans of all stripes found ways to discount it, Westen said.
Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes — subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups.
That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.
Republicans are not happy of course.
Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he disagreed with the study’s conclusions but that it was difficult to offer a detailed critique, as the research had not yet been published and he could not review the methodology. He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases — against Republicans — noting that Nosek (University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek) and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.
"There are a lot of factors that go into political affiliation, and snap determinations may be interesting for an academic study, but the real-world application seems somewhat murky," Jones said.
Nosek said that though the risk of bias among researchers was "a reasonable question," the study provided empirical results that could — and would — be tested by other groups: "All we did was compare questions that people could answer any way they wanted," Nosek said, as he explained why he felt personal views could not have influenced the outcome. "We had no direct contact with participants."
The analysis found that substantial majorities of Americans, liberals and conservatives, found it more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces — evidence of implicit bias. But districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush.
"Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president," said Banaji, "but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice."
"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he (Jon Krosnick, a psychologist and political scientist at Stanford University) said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, ‘This takes me aback,’ they are ignoring a huge volume of research."
Accidental Blogger 
5 responses to “What’s Your Voting Bias?”
Wow, as a life-long southerner, I’m shocked that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to harbor anti-black prejudice. What’s next — they’re more homophobic too?
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“There are a lot of factors that go into political affiliation, and snap determinations may be interesting for an academic study, but the real-world application seems somewhat murky,” Jones said.
That [above] is what sticks in my mind as especially problematic. It’s understandable that he can’t yet provide a methodological critique of the study if that information hasn’t been published yet… but essentially what he’s trying to say is that studies might be valid academically but invalid in the “real world.” Doesn’t it seem like a sort of anti-intellectualist movement is ongoing and gaining strength in this country? This frightens me tremendously. It’s not even a claim of relativity, but rather that your Real American’s Real World trumps academic truth. Or to steal a line from Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report”: “Keep your facts, I’m going with the truth!”
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Doug:
I know it sounds like a no-brainer but now they have brain scans to prove the suspicion.
Joe:
How else can we explain the white vote in lower and lower middle income groups, consistently going to the Republicans – against their own economic interests?
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With respect to self-admitted racists, of course, the story is as old as 1948, when Strom Thurmond (dead, finally) et al. left the Democratic Convention, under a banner of “Segrgation Forever,” in protest over the inclusion of a civil rights plank in the party platform, taking their constituencies with them. The full incorporation of those constituencies into the Republican Party was completed through the courting of populist conservative Republicans such as Arizona Senator (and later Chief Justice) Rehnquist (dead, finally), also Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater (ditto), and Ronald Reagan (ditto), who used these constituencies to marginalize moderate Republicans such as Nelson Rockefeller. “Goldwater Revolution,” so far as I can tell, basically just means: “We got the Southern racists.”
I’m more interested in the story behind the “implicit biases.” This is the group for which conducting a study seems most useful. It’s also the group for which interpretation of the study seems most complicated. Are wealthy Northern suburban soccer moms/dads who say their voting their pocketbook or give other race neutral explinations for their Republican vote really drawn by racist subtexts?This is clearly true in some cases, such as those drawn by the highly effective “tough on crime” ads featuring Willie Horton’s mug shot. Do the pride-pumping, nationalist, bellicose slogans that Republicans so effectively (with namby pamby centrist Dems awkwardly following suit) hock have racial underpinnings? In line with Ruchira’s point about the economically irrational voting patterns of middle and lower class white voters, I’d be very interested to see how the studies results tracked by income and geography.
Of course, fascinating though cultural theorizing may be, it’s also true that solely by inclusion of every and all self-admitted racists, the Republican Party would be more racist, on average, than the Democratic Party. And any Republican who tries to deny the existence of this constituency is a hypocrite, liar, or worse.*
*Tangent on a tangent: interesting to note that Ole’ Strom himself moderated his (public) views on race in his old age (supporting MLK Jr. Day, etc.). He might have worked to obstruct African-Americans’ right to vote, but once they gained it, anyway, he saw which way the wind was blowing. I have some hopes (unrealistic?) that the ongoing, market-driven immigration of both American-born and foreign-born residents into the South in the past ten or twenty years may break some of our country’s Mason-Dixon voting patterns…
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Anna,
I am sure that there are upper middle class, suburban people who vote for the same considerations – I am convinced that there are several among my neighbors who do. Although they would insist that their Republican votes have to do with the economy and American values. But if you slice the baloney further on both points, you will find out that it frequently does come down to race in the end. The Democratic Party is perceived by many as the party of riff-raffs and “un-Americans” – loosely translated, that usually means minorities and immigrants.
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