The Symbolic Racism 2000 Scale

The concept of symbolic racism was originally proposed 30 years ago. Much research has been done and the society itself has changed, yet many of the original items measuring symbolic racism remain in use. The primary objective of this paper is to present and evaluate an updated scale of symbolic rac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political psychology 2002-06, Vol.23 (2), p.253-283
Main Authors: Henry, P.J., Sears, David O.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Black people
Conservatism
Hispanics
Interethnic relations
Measurement
modern racism scale
new symbolic racism scale
Political attitudes
Political debate
Political science
Prejudice
Prejudices
Psychology
Race
racial attitudes
Racial policies
racial politics
Racism
Scales
Social Attitudes
Social psychology
symbolic racism
Symbolism
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Summary:The concept of symbolic racism was originally proposed 30 years ago. Much research has been done and the society itself has changed, yet many of the original items measuring symbolic racism remain in use. The primary objective of this paper is to present and evaluate an updated scale of symbolic racism. The scale proves to be reliable and internally coherent. It has discriminant validity, being distinctively different from both older forms of racial attitudes and political conservatism, although with a base in both. It has predictive validity, explaining whites' racial policy preferences considerably better than do traditional racial attitudes or political predispositions. Evidence is presented of its usefulness for both college student and general adult population samples, as well as for minority populations. Data using this scale contradict several critiques of the symbolic racism construct (most of which are speculative rather than based on new data) concerning the consistency of its conceptualization and measurement, the coherence of the symbolic racism belief system, possible artifacts in its influence over whites' racial policy preferences (due to content overlap between the measures of independent and dependent variables), and its differentiation from nonracial conservatism and old-fashioned racism.
ISSN:0162-895X
1467-9221
DOI:10.1111/0162-895X.00281