WV exit polls on Obama/Wright, the McCain/Hagee Double Standard, and "OUTGROUP HOMOGENEITY"

[ProgressiveEconomist]

"They all look alike." If you heard someone actually utter those words, you would have good reason to categorize that person as a racist. That sentiment is an extreme manifestation of what social psychologists such as David Hamilton (see his quote below) call "OUTGROUP HOMOGENEITY".

But there are subtler manifestations of outgroup homogeneity that may be unconscious and that fewer observers would immediately categorize as racist or even as prejudiced or stereotypical. One of them apparently is the failure of John McCain's associations with outright racist and homophobe ministers Hagee, Parslee, and Falwell to "stick", while Sean Hannity's year-long campaign to attribute Jeremiah Wright's views to Barack Obama metastaticized and has run for months in the Clinton campaign and in every mainstream media outlet.

What got me googling "outgroup homogeneity" and looking at WV exit poll questions on Wright and Obama today (see my first "Reply" below) was an Olberman segment last Thursday (May 8th) on voters' and media editors' jarring double standard regarding McCain/Hagee and Obama/Wright. African-American WashingtonPost Associate Editor Eugene Robinson mentioned a "column from the social science perspective" the Post had published on this. I believe I have found it:

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From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/04/AR2008050401849.html?hpid=topnews :

"Shankar Vedantam - The Candidate, the Preacher and the Unconscious Mind

Obama may find it especially hard to shake the associations that white voters have formed between him and Wright because both men are black. Social psychologist David Hamilton at the University of California said this is because of a phenomenon known as the "outgroup homogeneity effect" -- on average, people tend to feel that those from other ethnic, cultural and political groups are quite similar to one another, whereas they know that people from their own groups are quite varied. To break the mental associations that white voters have between him and Wright, in other words, Obama will probably have to work much harder than if politician and preacher were also white. This also explains why black voters seem to have little trouble distinguishing Obama's views from Wright's views -- people rarely have trouble seeing that people from their own groups can have a wide range of views.

... there is some evidence our minds are especially attuned to negative associations. At Arizona State University ... social psychologist Steven Neuberg believes that these biases arise because we often see similar people in one another's company. If you see two men in suits talking to each other and you know one of them is a lawyer, it is plausible to think the second person is a lawyer, too. Prejudice follows similar mental heuristics, or shortcuts. Hebl argues that the more Obama can get people to think about the Wright issue in a deliberate and conscious manner, the more likely he will be able to divorce himself from Wright -- many mental associations are powerful precisely because they operate unconsciously.

It won't be easy, however -- and not just because Obama's opponents are doing everything they can to keep the association alive. "I would argue people will continue to link Wright with Obama," (Rice University Social Psychologist Michelle) Hebl said. "Based on my research and based on my findings, you can't unring a bell.""

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Now the link to WV exit poll results in my fisrt reply below.

Question (1) shows the perfect correlation between degree of belief that Obama shares Wright's views and votes for Hillary Clinton yesterday.

Note that the same percentage (21 percent) of the 1478 respondents in CNN's exit poll said "A Lot" to the degree of belief in shared views (1) and (among white respondents) said "Yes" to "Was the race of the candidate important to you?" I believe there could be a great deal of overlap between those two groups of respondents.

Question (3) shows the extreme partisanship of Clinton voters.

IMO, this pattern of "believe anything bad about a Black candidate" and high proportion of "race matters" among whites may reflect WV's unique history: Negligible current-day African-American population, combined with the historic legacies having been a Slave State.

What do YOU think?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

1. WV exit poll results from CNN

From
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#WVDEM
:

"EXIT POLLS: West Virginia
updated 9:18 a.m. EST, May 14, 2008
DEMOCRATIC PARTY, May 13, 2008 1478 Respondents

(1) Obama Share Views of
Rev. Wright.........       Clinton Obama
A Lot .... (21%) ........... 88% ... 3%
Somewhat . (31%)............ 77% .. 14%
Not Much . (22%)............ 55% .. 39%
Not At All (24%)............ 48% .. 50%

(2) Was Race of Candidate
Important to You.......... Clinton Obama
Whites Who Say Yes (21%) ... 84% ... 9%
Whites Who Say No. (72%) ... 65% .. 27%

(3) Would You Be Satisfied Clinton Obama
Only if Clinton Wins (46%) .. 97% ... 1%
Only if Obama Wins . (13%) ... 3% .. 95%
If Either Wins ..... (28%) .. 57% .. 38%
Dissat. With Both .. (10%) .. 41% .. 14%

HOW TO READ EXIT AND ENTRANCE POLLS: The first column of
numbers in each
table shows how many voters fall into each category; those
numbers should
be read down. The remaining figures show how each category
voted; those
numbers should be read across."

[BlooInBloo]

2. The ways white folks put lipstick on their racism never cease to amaze me....

Do black folks think white folks either look or are alike?

No.

It's just racism, folks.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

3. "Do black folks think white folks either look ar are alike?" Consider the difference

in decisionmaking power between whites and Blacks in most everyday situations. African-Americans genrally don't have the option to simply ignore wide differences among whites and shun them all. Economic survival for Blacks often depends on knowing who among whites can be trusted *at least a little) and who cannot.

And when African-Americans reach a certain threshold of the population in any location, more and more whites are forced to deal with them rather than just shun tehm all. IMO West Virginia is one of those places where Blacks have not reached that threshold, and, because of legacies of slavery, many whites are predisposed to be extremely prejudiced.

[BlooInBloo]

4. Misquote.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

6. Do U mean 'TYPO'? Other than my typing "ar" instead of "or", what "misquote" do you see?

Did my typo change the sense of your post?

[BlooInBloo]

7. I'm perfectly capable of making typos without your help, thanks. :)

[anonymous171]

5. You think Hillary's Reagan Democrat base in WV cares about Gay Rights?

:rofl:

[ProgressiveEconomist]

8. ?