Abstract
To further investigate liberals versus conservatives, data on racial attitudes are related to voting behavior in the 1988 national elections for President of the United States and for races for the U.S. Senate and for the House of Representatives. The sample size ranged from 537 to 1,154 people surveyed in a national representative sample of voters. Results link conservatism to belief that the government should not help blacks and/or that the civil rights movement is pushing too fast for their goals. Liberals are more favorable to helping blacks. The data are consistent with previous findings linking conservatism and prejudice, and contradict the view that racial attitudes do not relate to behavior.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Carmines, E. G. & Stimson, J. A. (1980). The racial reorientation of American politics. In J. C. Pierce & J. L. Sullivan (Eds.), The electorate reconsidered (pp. 199–219). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Carmines, E. G., & Stimson, J. A. (1989). Issue evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Eisenman, R. (1991a). From crime to creativity: Psychological and social factors in deviance. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.
Eisenman, R. (1991b). Gender and racial prejudice of conservative college women. Psychological Reports, 68, 450.
Eisenman, R. (1992). Creativity, social and political attitudes, and liking or disliking David Duke. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 30, 19–22.
Eisenman, R. (1993). Student attitudes toward David Duke before and after seeing the film “Who is David Duke?”. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 31, 37–38.
Eisenman, R., & Sirgo, H. B. (1991). Liberals versus conservatives: Personality, child-rearing attitudes, and birth order/sex differences. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 29, 240–242.
La Pierre, R. (1934). Attitudes and actions. Social Forces, 13, 230–237.
Ray, J. J. (1971). Ethnocentrism: Attitudes and behavior. Australian Quarterly, 43, 89–97.
Ray, J. J. (1976). Do authoritarians hold authoritarian attitudes? Human Relations, 29, 307–325.
Ray, J. J. (1984). Half of all racists are left wing. Political Psychology, 5, 227–235.
Sirgo, H. B., & Eisenman, R. (1990). Perception of governmental fairness by liberals and conservatives. Psychological Reports, 67, 1331–1334.
Sirgo, H. B., & Eisenman, R. (1993). Liberals versus conservatives: Are attitudes toward government related to experiences with government? Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 31, 155–157.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The authors gratefully acknowledge funding by the Shearman Research Initiative Fund, which made the production of this work possible. The data utilized in this study were made possible by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Neither the original collectors of the data nor the Consortium bear any responsibility for the analysis or the interpretations presented here. A modified version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association, Austin, Texas, March 1991.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Eisenman, R., Sirgo, H.B. Racial attitudes and voting behavior in the 1988 national elections: Liberals versus conservatives. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 31, 268–270 (1993). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334925
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334925