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When Racial Ambivalence Evokes Negative Affect, Using a Disguised Measure of Mood

Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, rghbc{at}cunyvm.bitnet

Irwin Katz

Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Nina Rizzo

Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Joan Bailey

Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Lynn Moore

Brooklyn College of the City University of New York

Many White people simultaneously hold both sympathetic and antagonistic attitudes toward Blacks. The present research found that activation of these conflicted racial attitudes gives rise to psychological tension and discomfort, as evidenced by negative mood change, and that the amount of discomfort depends on individual differences in measured ambivalence. The salience of Mite subjects' racial attitudes was manipulated by exposing half the subjects to controversial statements about a recent local incident of racial violence; the other half read neutral material Before and after this manipulation, subjects took a mood test disguised as a subliminal perception task. Subjects in the high-salience condition showed significantly more negative mood change. This effect was carried by high-salience subjects who were also relatively high on dispositional racial ambivalence, as measured by a questionnaire. Ambivalence was unrelated to mood in the control condition. A second study showed that merely completing the questionnaire was not sufficient to produce negative mood change.

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