Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Political Implication of Motivation to Control Prejudice Reactions

我建议的研究集中在政治科学的一个主要争论点上，即种族态度的测量（Kinder 1986; Sears and Kinder 1985; McConahay 1986）。用外行人的话来说，态度是对某事的一种感觉（通常是积极的或消极的）。我试图找到一种不受社会期望偏见影响的对少数民族态度的衡量标准。公正地衡量对少数群体的态度，对于提高对有关少数群体的公共政策的理解和预测是很重要的。我提出了一种认知方法来解决获得人们对少数群体成员的真实态度的问题。利用态度的可及性作为人们对群体成员态度的指标，我希望开发出一种较少偏见的公众对少数群体的看法。具体来说，我研究了非洲裔美国人和移民——西班牙裔美国人和亚裔美国人。为此，我扩展了法齐奥的个体差异量表，该量表衡量人们控制黑人对其他群体的偏见反应的动机（法齐奥，杰克逊，道顿和威廉姆斯，1995；道顿和法齐奥，1997；法齐奥和道顿，1997）。法齐奥有效地证明，控制这个变量可以更准确地预测人们对少数民族的总体态度和对相关政治事件的看法。因此，我们应该能够更好地预测有关少数民族的公共政策的情绪。公众对处理少数民族政策的态度在很大程度上取决于对该群体及其成员的态度（Schneider and Ingram 1993; snyder man, Brody and Tetlock 1991; Kinder and Sears 1985）。这是一项重要的贡献，因为研究显示了公众舆论在形成公共政策方面的重要性（Page and Shapiro 1992）。因此，这种控制偏见反应的动机的个体差异测量被开发出来，以提供与非反应性测量相结合的结果。因此，这个自我报告量表将提供一个更好的理解人们的种族态度，而没有实施非反应性措施的复杂性。我随后研究了这些态度如何影响政策意见。我建议用这个新措施来扩展政治学中一个相对未被研究的领域——关于移民和移民政策的公众舆论。首先，我确定人们对不同移民群体的总体态度。其次，我测试人们对一个群体的刻板印象是否会影响对与该群体和整个移民相关的政策的看法。[此外，我还研究了当其中一组在受试者的脑海中被突出时，这些观点的差异。换句话说，我研究的是，与“移民”这个模棱两可的术语并置在一起，接触拉美裔和亚洲人是否会显著影响人们对移民政策的看法。第三，我探索了一种自我报告的测量方法，它要求个人从一个群体成员的角度来确定人们的种族态度（Barsalou 1989）。当要求个体将他们的个人观点与典型群体成员的观点联系起来时，检查他们的反应之间的差异应该会揭示偏见。最后，我希望回答之前未回答的问题，即当个人回答有关移民政策的问题时，会想到谁或什么协会。例如，全国选举研究只询问了关于移民和移民政策的一般性问题，并没有具体指出它所涉及的群体。简而言之，我调查了当人们听到“移民”这个词时，他们在想什么，以及这如何影响他们对相关政策的看法。总之，我建议制定更好的措施，从而了解少数群体的态度和与少数群体有关的政策。

My proposed research focuses on a major point of contention in political science, that is, the measurement of racial attitudes (Kinder 1986; Sears and Kinder 1985; McConahay 1986). [In layman's terms, an attitude is a feeling (usually positive or negative) about something.] I attempt to find a measure of attitudes about minorities that does not suffer from social desirability bias. Unbiased measures of attitudes toward minority groups are important to improve understanding and prediction of opinion toward public policies related to the minority groups in question. I propose a cognitive approach to address the problem of obtaining a true measure of people's attitudes toward minority group members. Using the accessibility of attitudes as an indicator of people's attitudes towards group members, I hope to develop a less biased measure of public opinion about minority groups. Specifically, I examine African-Americans and immigrants - Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans. I do this by expanding Fazio's individual difference scale which measures people's motivations to control their prejudiced reactions of blacks to these other groups (Fazio, Jackson, Dunton and Williams 1995; Dunton and Fazio 1997; Fazio and Dunton 1997). Fazio effectively demonstrates that controlling for this variable allows more accurate predictions of people's overall attitudes toward minorities and opinions about related political events. Consequently, we should be better able to predict sentiment toward public policies related to minorities. Public sentiment on policies dealing with minorities is largely determined by attitudes toward the group and its members (Schneider and Ingram 1993; Sniderman, Brody and Tetlock 1991; Kinder and Sears 1985). This is an important contribution in light of research showing the importance of public opinion in shaping public policy (Page and Shapiro 1992). Thus, this individual difference measure of motivation to control prejudiced reactions is developed to provide results in conjunction with non-reactive measures. Consequently, this self-report scale will provide a better understanding of people's racial attitudes without the complications of implementing non-reactive measures. I subsequently examine how these attitudes affect policy opinions. I propose to use this new measure to expand on a relatively unstudied area in political science -- public opinion about immigrants and immigration policy. First, I determine people's general attitudes toward different immigrant groups. Second, I test whether people's stereotypes about a group influence opinions about policies related to that group and immigrants as a whole. [Additionally, I investigate differences in these opinions when one group is made salient in subjects' minds. In other words, I examine whether exposure to hispanics versus Asians in juxtaposition with the ambiguous term, "immigrant," significantly affects opinions on immigration policy.] Third, I explore a self-report measure that asks individuals to take the perspective of a group member to determine people's racial attitudes (Barsalou 1989). Examining the differences between individuals' responses when asking them to relate their personal opinions and those of a typical group member should reveal prejudices. Finally, I hope to answer the previously unanswered question of who or what associations come to mind when individuals answer questions about immigration policy. [For instance, the National Election Study asks only general questions about immigrants and immigration policy and does not denote specifically the group to which it refers.] In short, I investigate who people are thinking about when they hear the term, "immigrants," and how that influences opinion on policies related to them. In sum, I propose to develop a better measures and, therefore, understanding of attitudes minorities and minority-related policies.