“The Caucasian Persuasion”: The Effect of Candidate Skin Tone on White Attitudes

• In Event: The Centrality of Race in Public Opinion

Abstract

Despite Whites differentiating between African Americans based on skin tone for centuries, relatively little work has incorporated skin tone variation into theorizing about White out-group attitudes. I develop a theoretical framework building from group position theory to understand how the skin tone of Black candidates influences Whites’ perceptions of them, arguing that skin tone should be especially meaningful for Whites concerned with maintaining their dominant status in the racial hierarchy. Evidence from 67 original in-depth interviews with African Americans and a YouGov survey experiment with 500 respondents provides strong support for these expectations. On average, darker-skinned Black candidates receive worse evaluations from Whites, especially among two subgroups most likely to be concerned about maintaining status: strong White identifiers and White Republicans. Together, these findings highlight the value of more fine-grained measures of race for understanding the determinants of Black candidate support and the political contours of the American racial landscape.

Author

• Nicole Yadon, Ohio State University