Sequential Sympathy in Pandemic and Protest

• In Event: Racial Justice

Abstract

In this project, I test the influence of current events with a disproportionate and deeply harmful impact on the black community—the COVID-19 pandemic and the police violence against black Americans including George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, and Jacob Blake—on the recently identified and quantified attitude of “racial sympathy” (Chudy 2020). I argue that the COVID-19 pandemic created the conditions for large-scale attitude changes in white Americans by priming racially sympathetic attitudes. Increased attention to the news may bring awareness of the disease’s racial impact, which in turn prime racial sympathy and provide the context for attitude changes on non-COVID issues. My research into this subject will be a survey experiment in which respondents are presented with a series of news headlines and descriptions. The first three-factor dimension, a story about the COVID-19 pandemic, will either show respondents (1) a story about total national COVID deaths, (2) a similarly worded story and headline about the disproportionate impact COVID has had on black communities, or (3) a non-COVID, irrelevant story. The second dimension will be about protesting police violence, with a story about (1) police violence against blacks, intended to prime sympathy, (2) protests following a police shooting, which could prime sympathy or resentment (Wasow 2020), or (3) another irrelevant story. Using these survey experiments will allow me to assess the causal effects of racial resentment and sympathy on policy interpretations of racially framed current events, as well as the effects of those current events on racial attitudes.

Author

• Joshua P. Darr, Louisiana State University