Contents and Correlates of Whites’ and Blacks’ Racial Attitudes

Whites’ and Blacks’ intergroup attitudes were examined across four samples. Participants wrote essays describing their racial attitudes that were later coded for recurring themes. Coding revealed that Whites and Blacks had similar positive themes, but diverged for negative themes. White participants’ most frequently expressed negative attitudes were consistent with the tenets of modern racism theory (McConahay, 1986). These essay themes, as well as modern racism scores, were more strongly related to antiegalitarian sentiments than to the Protestant ethic. Black participants’ negative attitudes were described in terms of reactions to perceived racism, and their essay themes were unrelated to both egalitarianism and the Protestant ethic. Discussion focuses on the salient contents of intergroup attitudes, measurement issues, and the potentially different underlying roots of Whites’ and Blacks’ racial attitudes. r 2000 Academic Press