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Conceptions of Racial Prejudice: Symbolic Racism Reconsidered
Author(s) -
Weigel Russell H.,
Howes Paul W.
Publication year - 1985
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.1540-4560.1985.tb01132.x
Subject(s) - racism , prejudice (legal term) , injustice , psychometrics of racism , social psychology , the symbolic , sociology , racial formation theory , meaning (existential) , resistance (ecology) , psychology , gender studies , psychoanalysis , ecology , psychotherapist , biology
Research on “symbolic racism” has underscored an important paradox in racial attitudes: whites' rejection of racial injustice, in principle, has developed without diminishing resistance to the social policies designed to correct the injustice. Yet despite the currency of symbolic racism in contemporary research on racial attitudes, questions about the meaning of the concept remain unanswered. The results of two investigations reported in this paper indicate that (a) the conceptual and empirical distinctions between symbolic racism and “old‐fashioned” prejudice have been exaggerated, and (b) symbolic racism may be best understood as one symptom of generalized tendencies to derogate out‐groups—tendencies associated with a configuration of personal attributes that reflect commitments to conservative sociopolitical values and conventional standards of conduct. These findings are discussed in reference to the persistence of racial prejudice, as well as its implications regarding exposure to and the effects of interracial contact.