ON THE NATURE OF PREJUDICE

The Political Psychology of Racism 349to critiques (see Sears & Henry, in press, for a detailed review). Symbolicracism was originally inductively derived to describe public opinion, andso not rigorously conceptualized. For this reason, and partly as a result ofthe popularity of the Reagan era’s market-based political conservatism, theidea of symbolic racism came under vigorous attack (e.g., Sniderman &Tetlock, 1986). Overall, however, those critiques of the symbolic racismconcept have not been strongly supported once tested empirically (forreviews, see Hutchings & Valentino, 2004; Krysan, 2000; Sears & Henry,in press).The concept of symbolic racism has evolved over time with accumulatedevidence. In recent years, it has been conceptualized and measuredin terms of four themes: (a) the denial of discrimination, (b) criticism ofBlacks’ work ethic, (c) resentment of Blacks’ demands, and (d) resentmentof unfair advantages given to Blacks by the broader society (Henry &Sears, 2002). Typical items include “If blacks would only try harder, theycould be as well off as whites,” and “Blacks are getting too demanding forequal rights.” These are usually interpreted as sincere beliefs rather than asefforts to cloak underlying prejudice. Empirical evidence confirms thatthese four themes together form a logically, psychologically, and statisticallycoherent belief system (Tarman & Sears, in press). Symbolic racism isquite different from old-fashioned racism, which now receives far lesssupport than in the past and whose political effects are now dwarfed bythose of symbolic racism (Sears, van Laar, Carrillo, & Kosterman, 1997).Symbolic racism is rooted in racial affect and individualistic values,which contribute to it both additively and through perceptions of Blacksthat merge the two (Sears & Henry, 2003). Although once criticized asmerely reflecting political conservatism, symbolic racism empirically relatesabout equally to it and to traditional prejudice (Sears & Henry, 2003). Theeffects of symbolic racism on racially relevant dependent variables are notmaterially reduced by controlling for political conservatism (Sears et al.,1997).EgalitarianismMost writers today describe a post-civil-rights era consensus among Whiteson support for general principles of racial equality. But things are not quitethat simple. It depends on which version of equality is in question. Theprinciple of equal treatment for individuals is often measured with items fromthe NES surveys, such as “Our society should do whatever is necessary tomake sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed” or “Ifpeople were treated more equally in this country we would have many