Study finds racism affects national policy

People’s bias against black people, even unconsciously, is influencing their view of President Obama and his health-care policies, a new study by UC Irvine researchers suggests.

In a four-part study that began before the presidential election last November, researchers found that people’s attitudes toward blacks played a role in how they viewed the president and the day’s most divisive social issue: health care.

“We were pretty focused on the health-care debate. For people with high prejudice, the messenger kind of stains the message for them,” said Eric Knowles, assistant professor of psychology and social behavior at UCI.

University researchers measured 285 people’s implicit prejudice, or their emotional associations with a particular group or members of a group. The study involved 236 European Americans, 43 Asian Americans and six Latinos. Females were the majority of participants, with 194 participating. Researchers targeted non-blacks for the study, Knowles said.

The study found that 65% of people with implicit prejudices toward blacks supported a health-care platform when they were told it was proposed by President Clinton. When the same group was told the plan was presented by Obama, only 41% of people with prejudices supported it, the study found.

“This is one study that shows racial attitudes continue to shape perceptions of political and social policies,” Knowles said. “My interests were psychological, not political. I really wanted to know whether race was a factor in shaping people’s attitudes on Obama.”

When people showed an explicit prejudice against blacks, that is, a clear, understandable and acknowledged bias against them, researchers considered that in their findings, Knowles said.

Researchers conducted speed tests that measure knee-jerk attitudes toward blacks to determine implicit prejudice.

Participants were assigned with judging two ideas at once in a split second. First, participants were given names that are commonly associated with blacks and whites, or European Americans. For instance, scientists considered the name Tyrone to be related to blacks and the name Chip associated with whites. The second component was good versus bad. So a word such as peace or pleasure meant a good association, while a word such as war or death had a bad association.