Contact: skonrath@umich.edu

Summary:

In this study we found that people rated African-Americans as a group more positively, but an African-American leader more negatively, on MLK Day as compared to control days

Introduction:

•Martin Luther King was a 1960s civil rights activist honored with a national holiday 15 years after his assassination•This study examined the effect of MLK Day on student’s attitudes towards African-Americans, both as a group and individually

Theoretical background:•Exposure to well-liked African-American exemplars can increase favorability toward African-Americans as a group (Bodenhausen et al., 1995)•However, others have suggested that exposure to idealized African-Americans may decrease favorability toward individual group members because they may be contrasted against such a high standard (Gates, 1989; Jhally & Lewis, 1992)

•This is in line with Schwarz & Bless’ (1992) inclusion / exclusion model of assimilation and contrast, which assigns an important role to category structure:

Assimilation effects: emerge when the primed exemplar is included in the representation formed of the group (superordinate category) Contrast effects: emerge when the primed exemplar serves as a standard for evaluating other exemplars (lateral categories)

•Using this model, we tested the prediction that after exposure to MLK (during the MLK Day holiday), individuals would rate African-Americans as a group more positively, while simultaneously rating a specific African-American leader more negatively

Method:

Design: Between-subjects: Participants were randomly assigned to complete the survey either 2 weeks before, during, or 2 weeks after MLK Day 2004 Within subjects: Ratings of African-Americans as a group and an individual African-American (Colin Powell). These were presented in counterbalanced order.

Participants: •1366 email addresses were randomly selected from our student directory •All were sent an email inviting them to complete a short online survey about “Current Issues,” of which 199 responded (14.6% response rate)

Mean age: 22.78 (range: 18-46)Ethnicity: 80.4% Caucasion, 7.5% Asian-American, 1.5% African-American, rest “other” or blank

Measures:

Ratings of group: Items from the modern racism scale (McConahay, 1986) were used to determine attitudes toward African-Americans as a group e.g. “Discrimination against Blacks still a problem in the U.S. today” (higher agreement indicates more favorable group attitudes) Ratings of individual: Participants were asked how they feel about a specific African-American exemplar, Colin Powell (1=dislike him a lot; 9= like him a lot) Other: Additional questions (e.g. about the economy) were asked to ensure our cover story was believable

•This pattern was only found in participants who attended (or planned to attend) an MLK Day special event (N=59)

•Participants who did not attend an event showed no attitude change over the three time periods toward either African-Americans as a group or the specific exemplar

Conclusions:•Under real-life conditions of exposure to MLK, without any reminder to participants of the MLK Day holiday, we found our predicted assimilation and contrast effects

Consistent with past research: -Group evaluations assimilated to the primed exemplar -Individual evaluations contrasted with the primed exemplar

•The predicted effects were only observed for participants who attended an MLK Day event, thus ensuring a strong priming manipulation

Considerations:•Numerous events surrounding MLK Day may prime more than Martin Luther King, so it is necessary to conduct analogous studies in more controlled settings

Future directions:•We are currently conducting laboratory studies in order to replicate this effect

Results:

•Participants overall rated African-Americans as a group more positively on MLK Day than before or after it, but rated Colin Powell more negatively on MLK Day as compared to the control days

MLK Day and attitude change: Liking the group more, but specific exemplars

lessSara Konrath Sara Konrath

& Norbert Schwarz & Norbert Schwarz

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*Target X Date interaction, F(2,183)=4.49, p=.012

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Group contrast: t(56)=3.01, p=.004; Exemplar contrast: t(56)= -1.98, p=.053

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