ABSTRACT
We examine the degree to which white Americans engage in motivated reasoning when confronted with instances of potential racial discrimination. Drawing on data from the National American Racial Opinion Survey (AROS) conducted by telephone with 1,229 white Americans, we develop a measure of racially motivated reasoning by presenting respondents with news reports of racial discrimination and reverse discrimination and asking them to rate the credibility of each story. The tendency to engage in motivated racial reasoning is more pronounced among those who endorse negative racial stereotypes, reflecting the defense of racially prejudicial views. But motivated reasoning also occurs in defense of political ideology, specifically egalitarianism and individualism, complicating the interpretation of the denial of racial discrimination as racially prejudicial. Individualists are motivated to deny the existence of racial discrimination against blacks whereas egalitarians are motivated to deny the existence of reverse discrimination against whites. We examine the effects of motivated reasoning on the “recall” of basic historical facts related to the civil rights movement. We find that white Americans who are motivated to argue against contemporary racial discrimination against blacks (but not reverse discrimination against whites) are also more likely to deny the existence of past racial discrimination. Our findings underscore the complexity involved in interpreting events as instances of racial discrimination and help to explain the heated discussion over the pervasiveness of racial discrimination in contemporary American society.
