Head Strong: Expert on behavior says race may play a role in vote
11.02.08
My home office is littered with books ranging from politics to progressive rock. I have old Spectrum ticket stubs on a bulletin board alongside photos of our kids. I keep booze on my desk alongside a humidor. I'm a bit compulsive, yet an abundance of dog hair on my rug doesn't faze me. So what does this have to do with my politics?
A new study published in the Journal of Political Psychology offers political insights based on one's surroundings. Surveys and room inspections of 76 college students and 94 working professionals revealed that liberals tend to be messy (reflecting "cognitive inclinations . . . towards ambiguity and intellectualism"), while conservative domains are more orderly (an indication of their desire "for there not to be ambiguity").
Seeking a diagnosis for my current political posture, I tracked down Dana Carney, the study's co-author and assistant professor of management at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. Carney said a colleague would be better able to answer my questions, but added in an e-mail:
"My expertise is really in (a) nonverbal behavior and (b) unconscious racial bias. Something nobody is talking about is the notion of implicit or unconscious racial bias and how it will play out in this election.
"Research shows 85 percent of whites demonstrate a moderate to strong degree of unconscious racial bias against blacks. Only a TINY percentage of these same people explicitly self-report anti-black bias. How will this play out in the polls? Polls are based on explicit reports of belief/intention. It will be a whole new ballgame when people have to actually GO to vote . . .
"I predict that big margin Obama has will close considerably and that race is going to be REALLY tight. Mark my words. Unconscious racial bias is SNEAKY and shapes all kinds of judgments and decisions - especially SNAP judgments made under time pressure and in private. Now, if you want to talk about that, I am your girl."
I dialed her immediately. I wasn't sure I bought into her assessment, but I think it's healthy to have a conversation before Tuesday about her research.
Carney told me the effect of this "implicit" racial bias on the presidential election runs deeper than the so-called Bradley Effect - the idea that white voters tell pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate when they have no such intention. She described the "networks of associations" that form below our consciousness after a lifetime of experiences, learning, reading and watching television.
"Through the media, we have grown up in a culture where black is more violent, and black is to be feared, and black is not as smart, and black is this, and black is that," she said. "Black can be athlete and singer and entertainer, but black is not competent. Black is lazy."
Carney says she believes those implicit biases manifest themselves subtly - no matter how progressive or conservative a person's political world view - and can affect his or her voting. She cited as a behavioral example the white who stiffens up slightly or veers inches off track when a young African American man approaches on the sidewalk.
She also pointed me to another study she co-authored, published last year in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, in which she found that young doctors' implicit biases predicted less thorough treatment for African American patients than for white patients. That, despite the Hippocratic Oath.
But I still wasn't sure what all this had to do with voting.
"When people are under time pressure or when they're forced to actually make a decision, that's when the anxieties creep in and change what the person's about to do," she said.
I told her I wasn't sure the time pressure applied here, given that voters surely know for whom they will vote for president before they arrive at their polling place.
Carney replied, "Well, actually, I think it keeps them from going to the polls. So those undecided voters or those people teetering on the edge, they may not get up and actually go and vote."
"The bottom line is that the deeper parts of your brain are operating on a level that's separate from the conscious part of your brain."
Her analysis causes me concern. There are plenty of legitimate reasons not to vote for Barack Obama, but race isn't one of them. So how do we exorcise ourselves of those unconscious impulses that may be race based? I would argue by talking about them before Tuesday. Because the more we discuss and recognize the implicit biases Carney cited, the more marginalized I believe they will become.
And once we rid ourselves of those racial impulses, we can return to our more traditional voting behavior - based on how we arrange our furniture.
Michael Smerconish's column appears Thursdays in the Daily News and Sundays in Currents. He can be heard from 5 to 9 a.m. weekdays on "The Big Talker," WPHT-AM (1210). Contact him via http://www.mastalk.com.