Ideology and the Affective Structure of Whites' Racial Perceptions

The present study tests the hypothesis that deviations from"affective bipolarity" in the relationship between the positiveand negative dimensions of whites’ stereotypes of blacks—suchas racial ambivalence—should be stronger among conservatives.Across two different data sets (the 2000 National Election Studyand the 1991 National Race and Politics Study) and three differentmethodologies (heteroskedastic regression, confirmatory factoranalysis, and a regression analysis of attitude-ambivalencescores), this hypothesis was supported. Further analyses indicatedthat the relationship between conservatism and ambivalent perceptionsof blacks was mediated by conflict between humanitarian andindividualistic concerns in the racial context, but not in theabstract.