Race and Social Problems

, Volume 1, Issue 2, pp 97–110 | Cite as

Differentiating Contemporary Racial Prejudice from Old-Fashioned Racial Prejudice

  • Tony N. Brown
  • Mark K. Akiyama
  • Ismail K. White
  • Toby Epstein Jayaratne
  • Elizabeth S. Anderson
Article
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

The present study addresses the distinction between contemporary and old-fashioned prejudice using survey data from a national sample (n = 600) of self-identified whites living in the United States and interviewed by telephone in 2001. First, we examine associations among indicators of contemporary and old-fashioned prejudice. Consistent with the literature, contemporary and old-fashioned prejudice indicators represent two distinct but correlated common factors. Second, we examine whether belief in genetic race differences uniformly predicts both types of prejudice. As might be expected, belief in genetic race differences predicts old-fashioned prejudice but contrary to recent theorizing, it also predicts contemporary prejudice.

Keywords

Belief in genetic race differences Contemporary racial prejudice Genetic explanations Old-fashioned racial prejudice 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grant number HG01881 from the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Research Program at the National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health. We acknowledge input from members of the Beliefs about and Understanding of Genetics Project Workgroup, which was affiliated with the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan. We also wish to thank Deanne Casanova and Nakia Collins for help with manuscript preparation.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009

Authors and Affiliations

  • Tony N. Brown
    • 1
  • Mark K. Akiyama
    • 2
  • Ismail K. White
    • 3
  • Toby Epstein Jayaratne
    • 4
  • Elizabeth S. Anderson
    • 4
  1. 1.Department of SociologyVanderbilt UniversityNashvilleUSA
  2. 2.Diablo Valley CollegePleasant HillUSA
  3. 3.The Ohio State UniversityColumbusUSA
  4. 4.The University of MichiganAnn ArborUSA

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