Partisanship supersedes race: effects of discussant race and partisanship on Whites’ willingness to engage in race-specific conversations

Abstract

White participants in the United States were asked to imagine having a hypothetical conversation about race-specific issues with either a White or Black discussant who was described as either a Republican or Democrat. Participants’ expectations of encountering negative outcomes during the conversation, and their intentions to avoid the conversation, were measured. The black sheep effect posits that harmful ingroup members are evaluated more negatively than comparable outgroup members because they threaten the ingroup’s social identity. Findings indicate discussants’ partisanship is more important than their race in guiding respondents’ expectations of and desire to engage in cross-group conversations. Whites expected more negative outcomes and intended to avoid conversations more when they imagined talking about race with White discussants from a different political party than they did Black discussants from a different party, Black discussants from the same party, or White discussants from the same party. Intergroup threat and social identity theories are discussed.