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Differences in Responses of Blacks and Whites to American Leaders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Roger D. Masters
Roger D. Masters*
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, USA

Abstract

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How do members of different ethnic or racial groups differ in their responses to the same political events? Previous research has shown that when leaders are seen on television, the viewers' episodic emotional and cognitive responses can influence their attitudes and subsequent voting behavior. In an experimental replication, using excerpts of all candidates in the 1988 American presidential election, episodic emotions elicited by facial displays were again found to produce positive attitude change in white viewers. For blacks, however, the emotions felt while watching leaders—including Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis, who elicited highly favorable responses—did not influence posttest attitudes. This contrast between black and white viewers' emotions and attitudes differs from the effects of nonverbal behavior associated with personality or gender. These findings suggest that nonconscious factors may play an important role in the way blacks perceive and react within the American political system.

Type
Responses to Leaders
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , August 1994 , pp. 183 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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