Conversation of the Week VIII Fall 2011-2012: Perceptions Of Economic And Behavioral Differences Between Blacks And Whites, Racial Attitudes Of White Americans And Status Generalization

Much data shows that black Americans are both economically less well off than whites and have higher rates of some deviant behaviors. Social scientists often quote these statistics and typically see them as very important in our understanding of racial inequality. Kaplowitz, Fisher, and Broman (2003) have shown that much of the general public has a crude sense of what these data show. On the one hand, the large majority of respondents were aware that blacks are economically worse off than whites and also have higher rates of certain socially disapproved behaviors (such as out-of-wedlock births). On the other hand, there was considerable variability in their beliefs about the size of these differences between races.

The primary focus of this article is to learn the extent and direction of relationship between these estimates of racial statistics (which we call statistical perceptions) and two racial attitudes: the endorsement of the belief that blacks do not help themselves and the belief that they suffer discrimination. We will then use these results and the comparison between the statistical perceptions and the actual data to address the following additional questions: 1) Would accurate information about these statistics make white people more sympathetic to blacks, or less so? 2) How well does status generalization theory account for white attitudes towards blacks?

Prior Literature. In the 1960s, evidence that blacks were substantially worse off than whites was often used as a means of justifying government assistance to black people. President Kennedy (1963) quoted statistics on the economic disadvantage of blacks as part of his case for civil rights legislation. Chapter 7 of the 1968 Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission) documented the extent of black economic disadvantage as part of the case for national action to improve the situation of black people.

However, some social science literature suggests that the more whites perceive blacks to be poor, the more they will negatively stereotype blacks. Myrdal (1944: 75-78) suggests that the low socio-economic position of black people is not only a consequence of white prejudice and discrimination, but in turn “gives support to white prejudice.” Sniderman and Piazza (1993) go further and suggest that the belief that blacks have low socio-economic position may contribute to the stereotype that blacks are lazy and irresponsible, even among whites who do not have prior prejudice against blacks.

Several empirical studies are consistent with this prediction. Bobo and Massaglia (2001) found that the lower the perceived economic status of a minority group, the greater the tendency of white respondents to rate the dispositional traits of the group unfavorably. Even more direct evidence is provided by Brezina and Winder (2003) who found that the greater the economic disadvantage white respondents’ perceived blacks to have, the more these respondents viewed blacks as lazy.

Brezina and Winder explain this via Ridgeway’s (2000) status generalization theory, which holds that people infer the task ability of others from the levels of rewards or resources that they have received (see e.g., Cook 1975 for evidence on this). They see these status generalization processes as occurring even among those who accept a structural explanation for the differences between groups.

We propose however, that in the contemporary era, negative stereotyping of blacks is not a consequence of the perception that blacks are poorer. Rather, it is primarily related to the perception that blacks have a higher rate of socially undesirable behavior than whites.

Katz and Hass state (1988) that the degree to which blacks are viewed as deviant (i.e., not following the Protestant work ethic to improve their lot) is one of two important dimensions of white racial attitudes. A second dimension is the degree to which whites view blacks as disadvantaged (i.e., receiving lesser opportunity). Both of these dimensions are strong predictors of white attitudes towards policies designed to assist blacks (see e.g., Kluegel 1990). Thus, we will examine the effect of beliefs about racial differences in economic status and undesirable behavior on both negative stereotypes, and on beliefs about whether racial discrimination is a continuing problem for blacks.

The Causal Relationship between Attitudes and Statistical Perceptions. Hamlin (1948) strongly suggests that statistical perceptions reflect attitudes. However, both Brezina and Winder (2003) and this article assume that statistical perceptions influence attitudes. First, social psychologists typically assume that people start with empirical observations and develop attributions to explain them (see e.g., Heider 1958). Whether one has been directly exposed to a set of statistics, or has inferred them from experience (whether direct or vicarious), statistical perceptions are summaries of one’s impressions of the empirical world. By contrast, the racial attitudes that we have measured assume not only impressions of the empirical world but also causal attributions for them.

The plausibility of this causal direction is shown by the fact that persuasion campaigns often involve presentation of statistics (hence the saying “lies, damned lies and statistics”). Moreover, the literature on racial attitudes that we cited above, also assumes that people’s beliefs about these statistics affects their attitudes.

Hypotheses: These involve the Perceived Racial Difference (PRD) in a statistic, which we conceptualize as the difference between the respondent’s beliefs about a statistic about blacks and the corresponding statistic about whites. Our first hypothesis follows from the findings of Brezina and Winder (2003).

H1 There is a positive bivariate correlation between the Perceived Racial Difference (PRD) in economic status and the degree to which whites see blacks as failing to make an effort to improve their situation.

In explaining the other hypotheses, we first note that both the economic status someone achieves and the extent of his/her undesirable behavior can be explained in two alternative ways. One category of explanation or attribution is internal and focuses on the traits of the individual actor. The other kind of explanation focuses on external factors, including structural ones.

Americans generally prefer to make internal attributions for behavior, even where there is evidence of situational causes (see Ross 1977; Al-Zahrani and Kaplowitz 1993; Miller 1984). This is especially true where the behavior is viewed as unusual and socially undesirable (see Jones and Davis, 1965). Thus, the more that someone believes that undesirable behaviors (that violate the Protestant work ethic) are a distinctive characteristic of blacks, the more he/she will see this as evidence that blacks have negative traits (such as unwillingness to make an effort) that cause these behaviors.

H2 The greater the PRD in rates of undesirable behavior, the more respondents will believe that blacks do not make the effort to improve their situation.

While evidence suggests that most Americans prefer internal explanations for behavior, economic inequality can be given either an individualist or a structuralist explanation (see Kluegel and Smith 1986). In fact, Brezina and Winder (2003: 409) show that Americans see both structure and individual traits as contributing substantially to economic success. Regarding the black-white economic gap, Kluegel (1990) shows that while many Americans explain this gap individualistically, others explain it in terms of structure (including racial discrimination), and that many use both explanations.

H3 There is a strong positive bivariate correlation between the PRD in economic status and the PRD in undesirable behavior.

Both explanations of the black-white economic gap are consistent with H3. For those with an individualistic view, laziness or lack of effort causes undesirable behavior, which in turn, leads to poverty. For those with a structural view, lack of opportunity for blacks encourages poverty, which in turn causes undesirable behavior (see Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968: ch. 7, for such an argument).

H4a Controlling for the PRD in undesirable behavior, the PRD in economic status has a minimal effect on the belief that blacks do not make the effort to improve their situation. However

H4b Controlling for the PRD in economic status, the PRD in undesirable behavior has a substantial effect on the belief that blacks do not make the effort to improve their situation.
We have two rationales for H4a. First, if H2 and H3 are correct, then it is quite plausible that the bivariate relationship between the PRD in economic status and negative stereotyping is spurious. Second, believing that blacks are substantially poorer than whites, does not require invoking negative stereotypes to explain this gap. One can instead, explain this gap as a consequence of lack of opportunity for blacks (including discrimination). H4b follows from our prior assertion that undesirable behavior leads to dispositional attributions.

While economic differences between races are attributionally ambiguous, a difference in the economic status of blacks and whites with the same education is much less so. Such a difference negates a common individualistic explanation (racial differences in making the effort to get an education). Not only is education, in fact, a good predictor of income, but Americans are frequently told of this relationship and believe it strongly. Thus, we propose

H5 The greater the PRD in economic status, controlling for education, the greater the belief in the existence of continuing discrimination against blacks.

Armstrong (1991) found support for H5 using a college student sample.

Are racial attitudes the result of ignorance? Kinder and Sears (1981: 416) state that negative attitudes by whites towards blacks are based on “early learned stereotypes” rather than “contemporary racial experiences” – suggesting that they are based on misperception of reality. In this vein, Brezina and Winder (2003: 406-407) draw on their results and Gilens (1996) to suggest that negative stereotyping of blacks by whites is a result of exaggerating the correlation between race and economic status.

To accurately evaluate these claims, one needs two kinds of information: a) the magnitude and direction of the relationship between relevant perceived racial differences and racial attitudes and b) valid comparisons between the actual and the perceived racial differences on some statistics. This study is the only one that provides both kinds of information. Thus, it provides the best available assessment of the expected change in attitudes if the public’s knowledge were more accurate.

Implications for Status Generalization Theory. The experimental literature cited above shows that status generalization processes operate in situations where evaluators know the rewards that people have receive but lack any other evidence of the merit of those being evaluated. But do these processes provide an adequate explanation for evaluations in situations (such as racial attitudes) where evaluators may have independent impressions about the merit of those being evaluated? While Brezina and Winder (2003) make the case that these processes do explain such racial attitudes, we will consider the implications of our results for this issue.

Methods

The data were gathered in 1995, in a random-digit dial phone survey of the Michigan population, carried out by the Survey Research Division at the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University. Our analysis is restricted to the 823 white respondents. The Refusal Rate, REF2 (the proportion of all potentially eligible cases in which a respondent refused to do an interview) was 21.8 percent. The Contact Rate, CON3, (the proportion of all cases in which some responsible member of the housing unit was reached by the survey) was 96.4 percent. The individual cases were differentially weighted to make the sample more representative of the state population. However, Kaplowitz et al. (2003) found that using such weights resulted in very minor changes in the results. Consequently, the analysis reported omits these weights.

Author Bios:

Stan A. Kaplowitz (Ph.D. U of Michigan) is Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. He specializes in social psychology, especially of attitudes and communication. Aside from his interests in racial attitudes, he has published articles about, doctor patient communication, the relationship between message characteristics and persuasion, and about the time course of attitude change. He also applies quantitative methods to predicting risk of lead poisoning from the environmental and socio-demographic characteristics of neighborhoods. His new research directions are 1) attitudes toward donating tissue to bio-banks and 2) attitudes and behavior regarding environmental sustainability.

Clifford L. Broman (Ph.D. U of Michigan) is Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. He has been involved in research concerning race and adolescent substance use. Other current projects involve the epidemiology of substance use, and the politics and consequences of racial identification.

Bradley J. Fisher (Ph.D. Michigan State University) is Professor of Gerontology and of Psychology at Missouri State University. His research interests include the self-concept across the lifespan, stereotyping, and race relations, factors associated with subjective well-being in later life, and innovative teaching techniques.