Exam Three Review Elitist and Participatory perceptions of civil rights Civil Rights Government guarantee of equality for the people in the United States with regard to judicial proceedings the exercise of political rights treatment by public officials and access to and enjoyment of government programs Participatory democrats Education and exposure to diversity will lead people to a better understanding of the need for treating everyone equally Elite democrats The public is incapable of respecting others and either Inequality is to be expected and cannot be helped or It is incumbent on elites rather than the people to secure the rights of minorities Symbolic Old fashioned racism Symbolic Racism a belief that blacks do not work hard enough and that black disadvantage cannot be explained by discrimination Old Fashioned Racism Belief about the innate inferiority of one race relative to another Racial Resentment Racial Resentment blames inequality on differences in work ethic among racial groups rather than innate biological factors Many whites believed racial problems were solved in the 1960s Resent further help to minorities based on this belief Watts Riots Impetus for white backlash The causes of the gender gap On average women are about 8 more likely to be Democrats than men Women are more liberal than men on compassion issues use of force issues but more conservative than men on some moral issues Compassion Issues social welfare programs Use of force issues Death penalty war Moral issues marijuana legalization prayer in schools weak Political Knowledge helps voters Integrate new concepts into their wider belief system Understand the extent to which politicians should be held accountable for certain situations Understand the policy implications of certain actions Policies that sound good vs are good Make the decision to participate or not in campaigns elections Shape policy opinions Definition and implications of risk aversion Risk aversion and gender men generally more willing to make definitive statements in conditions of uncertainty Women in general require a higher level of certainty before being willing to express an opinion Solution Create surveys that discourage respondents from saying that they don t know and encouraging them to take a guess Misinformed vs Uninformed beliefs Uninformed a respondent who does not know the answer to a particular question May make a guess Misinformed A respondent who holds an incorrect belief with a high level of certainty Issue publics Definition and methods of identifying Groups of individuals with an intense knowledge and interest in a particular aspect of political information Some scholars think issue publics have increased because Traditional left right dichotomy less important after fall of communism Modern information environment allows people to better seek out specific interest news Definition and implications of pluralistic intolerance Sullivan argues that heterogeneity in least favored groups is good for democracy Rather than singling out a specific group towards which to direct hatred Americans divide their hate among many groups This Pluralistic Intolerance means that no one group will be subjected to inordinate amounts of discrimination Criticisms of Sullivan s theory Pluralistic intolerance leads to many more individuals feeling like their own rights are under attack Leads to widespread lack of freedom and decreased interpersonal trust worse than in the McCarthy era Demographic factors in political knowledge Demographics can impact knowledge of minority groups Women are more knowledgeable in states with female senators African Americans are more knowledgeable in states with African American representatives Chong and framing civil liberties Theory Frames about disliked groups are very strong frames whereas counterframes regarding civil liberties are often weak and unclear Methods Conducted extensive interviews with subjects some of whom were provided frames that called to mind the democratic norm of civil liberties Findings Presentation of counter frames on the importance of civil liberties increases the level of support for allowing disliked groups to speak Most people come off their initial opposition when civil liberty frames are made more salient Hidden Biases Implicit Association Test IAT Test Theory When concepts are closely related in one s mind it is easier to make a rapid response Forces people to make decisions in a rapid manner that prevents the conscious mind from filtering out racism If people associate whites blacks with good concepts they will be able to categorize other words as good more quickly when they are linked with whites blacks Affect Misattribution Procedure Affect misattribution procedure developed to explore the unconscious attitudes and values of individuals Participants are instructed to rate whether they perceive various abstract patterns such as Chinese characters as pleasant or unpleasant Prior to the Chinese character another object appears Participants are instructed to disregard this object Despite this instruction participants are more inclined to perceive the Chinese character as pleasant if they have formed favorable not unfavorable attitudes towards this object Allows people to express their displeasure at a concept without openly admitting it Racism of disliked items in treatment group of disliked items in the control group If people dislike all three other items expressing dislike for the fourth still reveals racist preferences but Such things should wash out through randomization Winning coalitions for Republicans and Democrats in the modern south 1960s Northern Democrats ally with Republicans to push Civil Rights legislation Presidents Kennedy and Johnson are perceived as the face of Civil Rights Some Republicans see an opportunity to exploit Civil Rights to make gains in the South Causes of the shifting allegiance of whites and blacks in the south Causes for whites List Experiment Problems Consolidation of power in the hands of whites was the preeminent goal of the pre 1960s Democratic Party An alliance of wealthy whites who feared the growth of power among blacks and poor whites who feared that blacks would offer cheaper labor and racism among both groups At the national level the pre 1960s Democratic Party an uneasy alliance of racially conservative southerners and more tolerant non southerners With the growth of Civil Rights in the 1960s black citizens enter the voting booth as