The Politics of Respectability and Black Americans’ Punitive Attitudes

Existing research largely ignores Black support for punitive policies that target group members, even as this challenges expectations of in-group favoritism and solidarity. The current fills gap by leveraging a familiar concept: “the politics respectability.” Building on historical qualitative accounts worldview, which focuses the behavior I develop social psychological framework to understand how identity-based concerns motivate punishment targets members their racial group. also novel measure respectability–the Respectability Politics Scale. Findings demonstrate adherents respectability feel more ashamed about public view group, endorse negative stereotypes, relatively less close other people. They are likely range including restrictive dress code policies, tough-on-crime paternalistic welfare policies.