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Dimensions of Verbal Racial Attitudes: Interracial Marriage and Approaches to Racial Equality
Author(s) -
Brigham John C.,
Woodmansee John J.,
Cook Stuart W.
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1976.tb02492.x
Subject(s) - social psychology , psychology , trichotomy (philosophy) , preference , cognition , racial group , race (biology) , gender studies , sociology , mathematics , epistemology , philosophy , statistics , neuroscience
The empirical approach to the analysis of attitude organization suggests that verbal racial attitudes are not organized in terms of cognitive, affective, and conative (or behavioral) components but rather in terms of content areas that cross‐cut this structural trichotomy. A racial attitude inventory made up of nine empirically identified dimensions successfully predicted whites' membership in attitudinal criterion groups. In this study two additional dimensions were hypothesized: (a) reactions to interracial marriage and (b) preference between an approach to racial equality for black Americans which stresses changes in society and one stressing changes in blacks themselves. Cluster analyses confirmed the existence of these two additional dimensions as well as the original nine. A validation study indicates that both new dimensions as well as the original nine successfully differentiate groups of whites known to differ in racial attitude.