Endorsing Obama licenses favoring Whites

Three studies tested whether the opportunity to endorse Barack Obama made individuals subsequently more likely to favor Whites over Blacks. In Study 1, participants were more willing to describe a job as better suited for Whites than for Blacks after expressing support for Obama. Study 2 replicated this effect and ruled out alternative explanations: participants favored Whites for the job after endorsing Obama, but not after endorsing a White Democrat, nor after seeing Obama’s photo without having an opportunity to endorse him. Study 3 demonstrated that racial attitudes moderated this effect: endorsing Obama increased the amount of money allocated to an organization serving Whites at the expense of an organization serving Blacks only for participants high in a measure of racial prejudice. These three studies suggest that expressing support for Obama grants people moral credentials [Monin, B., & Miller, D. T. (2001). Moral credentials and the expression of prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 33–43], thus reducing their concern with appearing prejudiced. 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. For the first time in American history, voters in 2008 had the Study 1 opportunity to vote for an African–American presidential nominee from amajor political party. Many voters probably felt that endorsing Barack Obama demonstrated not only their political values, but also their lack of racial prejudice. Ironically, establishing oneself psychologically as unprejudiced may make people feel more comfortable expressing views that could be interpreted as prejudiced. Contemporary Americans are normally careful not to express such views for fear of experiencing disapproval or guilt (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003), unless their past behavior establishes their moral credentials as unbiased individuals: Monin and Miller (2001) showed that merely choosing an African–American – who was the most qualified applicant – for a hypothetical job increased the likelihood that participants would describe a subsequent job as being better suited for White applicants. Consistent with these findings, we propose that endorsing Obama can license people to favor Whites at the expense of Blacks. We conducted three studies to test this proposition. Study 1 tests whether letting participants endorse Obama increases their willingness to favor a White job applicant. Study 2 seeks to replicate this effect and rule out two alternative explanations. Study 3 examines whether people high in racial prejudice are especially likely to favor Whites in a budget allocation task after endorsing Obama. ll rights reserved. Method