The Dynamics of Racialization: How Welfare Evaluations Reproduce Racial Stereotypes and Aggravate Symbolic Racism

Political science researchers have established a relationship between racial predispositions and political attitudes, such as opinions on welfare, in which the causal direction is commonly thought to be that an individual’s racial attitudes influence his or her views on welfare. The process by which these racial predispositions come to shape such political judgements and views is known as “racialization.” In the example of welfare, the more whites dislike blacks or stereotype them, the greater their antipathy toward welfare.

In this project, Paul Goren will ask: what if the causal relationship was the reverse of that of the conventional wisdom, or was bidirectional? If the conventional wisdom is incorrect for welfare, the same might be the case for other implicitly racial political issues, such as support for criminal justice policies, or affirmative action. In addition, it would follow that racialized media coverage of welfare and poverty are likely to sustain and reinforce racial stereotypes and resentments.

Goren will undertake a study to better understand the connections between racial prejudice and opposition to means-tested welfare programs. He argues that the causal direction of this relationship remains ambiguous because most research has been based on cross-sectional observational data; longitudinal data which could help disentangle causality has not been used, and the existing experimental evidence, though persuasive, has not tested for mutual causality. He proposes to model racial biases (such as stereotypes or symbolic racism) as a function of welfare perceptions, using experimental evidence to examine the extent to which welfare attitudes influence racial biases.