Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Differences in Black and White: Inter-racial Differences in the Perception of Political Information

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This doctoral dissertation research examines the root causes of inter-racial attitudinal differences. A large body of research in political science and in social psychology demonstrates that there are important differences in attitudes both within and across different racial and ethnic groups. These differences have important implications for the support of governing institutions. This research relies on laboratory experiments to discern whether subjects who have high attachment to social groups process information through a racial schema. The experiments require subjects to recall news stories in either printed or videotaped form that have been altered to produce different types of messages. The research isolates one mechanism which, when coupled with racial group identification, aids in the formulation of individual perceptions and attitudes.