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Infectious disease prevalence, not race exposure, predicts implicit and explicit racial prejudice across the USA
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O'Shea, Brian A., Watson, Derrick G. , Brown, G. D. A. (Gordon D. A.) and Fincher, Corey L. (2019) Infectious disease prevalence, not race exposure, predicts implicit and explicit racial prejudice across the USA. Social Psychological and Personality Science . (In Press)
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Abstract
What factors increase racial prejudice? Across the US, increased exposure to Black Americans has been hypothesized to increase White Americans’ prejudicial attitudes towards Black Americans. Here we test an alternative explanation: People living in regions with higher infectious disease rates have a greater tendency to avoid out-groups because such avoidance reduces their perceived likelihood of contracting illnesses. Consistent with this parasite-stress hypothesis, we show that both White and Black individuals (N >77,000) living in US states in which disease rates are higher, display increased implicit (automatic) and explicit (conscious) racial prejudice. These results survived the inclusion of several individual and state level controls previously used to explain variability in prejudice. Furthermore, showing disease-related primes to White individuals with strong germ aversion increased their explicit, but not implicit, anti-Black/pro-White prejudice. Domestic out-groups, not just foreigners, may therefore experience increased overt forms of prejudice when disease rates are high.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | |||||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races | |||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science > WMG (Formerly the Warwick Manufacturing Group) | |||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Racism -- United States, Prejudices -- United States, Communicable diseases -- United States | |||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Social Psychological and Personality Science | |||||||||
| Publisher: | Sage Publications Ltd. | |||||||||
| ISSN: | 1948-5506 | |||||||||
| Official Date: | 27 May 2019 | |||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Date of first compliant deposit: | 28 May 2019 | |||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | |||||||||
| Publication Status: | In Press | |||||||||
| Publisher Statement: | Posted ahead of print.O'Shea, Brian A., Watson, Derrick G. , Brown, G. D. A. (Gordon D. A.) and Fincher, Corey L. Infectious disease prevalence, not race exposure, predicts implicit and explicit racial prejudice across the USA. Social Psychological and Personality Science . (In Press) Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. DOI: [DOI] | |||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | |||||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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