Ideology and the Affective Structure of Whites’ Racial Perceptions

Abstract

The present study tests the hypothesis that deviations from “affective bipolarity” in the relationship between the positive and negative dimensions of whites’ stereotypes of blacks—such as racial ambivalence—should be stronger among conservatives. Across two different data sets (the 2000 National Election Study and the 1991 National Race and Politics Study) and three different methodologies (heteroskedastic regression, confirmatory factor analysis, and a regression analysis of attitude-ambivalence scores), this hypothesis was supported. Further analyses indicated that the relationship between conservatism and ambivalent perceptions of blacks was mediated by conflict between humanitarian and individualistic concerns in the racial context, but not in the abstract.