Harvard Social Psych: Bush is appealing as a leader to racist Americans

[IndyOp]

Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases

Emory University psychologist Drew Westen put self-identified Democratic and Republican partisans in brain scanners and asked them to evaluate negative information about various candidates. Both groups were quick to spot inconsistency and hypocrisy -- but only in candidates they opposed. <snip>



Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes -- subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups. <snip>

The analysis found that substantial majorities of Americans, liberals and conservatives, found it more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces -- evidence of implicit bias. But districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush.<snip>

"Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president," said Banaji, "but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice."

Vincent Hutchings, a political scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the results matched his own findings in a study he conducted ahead of the 2000 presidential election: Volunteers shown visual images of blacks in contexts that implied they were getting welfare benefits were far more receptive to Republican political ads decrying government waste than volunteers shown ads with the same message but without images of black people. <snip>

Try the Implicit Association Test yourself:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

[kaygore]

1. Duh!

[liberalhistorian]

4. I know! Like they

actually needed to spend time and money on a fucking study to determine that! Just why do you think it is that the repubs were able to overtake the South so quickly and easily? By playing on the racial fears and hate that was whipped up in full force during the civil rights movement. They knew exactly what they were doing and focused their strategy accordingly.

[kaygore]

5. When I scratch the surface of most Republicans

and actually get them to discuss their reasons, what it comes down to is that they were born too late: They missed out on the opportunity to be members of the KKK.

That's hy I always said that America would never go Red (Commie). Fascism is so much more to our nature.

[JuniperLea]

2. I guess we can expect

pointy white hats to wear with our brown suits.

Disgusting.


We are moving backward! We need an MLK to fight for us! Too bad they don't make 'em like that anymore.


:(

[leftstreet]

3. This would help explain his lousy poll numbers

[jazzjunkysue]

6. This has been my theory from the beginning. Gore is a weenie= sucker

Meaning, he'll give away our hard earned $$ and privileges to those good for nothing blacks.

No question at all. He makes being a bigot seem middle of the road. Most people who consider themselves middle of the road right now are repressed bigots. The bogots who are comfortable with their hate identify as conservatives, which is code word for keep things the way they were in the 50's: Fat white men sitting around watching the blacks do all the grunt work, at poverty wages.

No doubt about it at all.