Recruitment Job Talk with Nicholas Valentino

DateNovember 6, 2014

Time12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location
4357 Bunche Hall

Contact

Presenter:Nicholas Valentino, University of MichiganTitle: “News Mediated Threat, Group Empathy, and Racial Gaps in Public Opinion”Abstract:To explain group differences in reactions to mass mediated political threats, we develop Group Empathy Theory.  The theory posits empathy felt by members of one minority group can boost policy support for another in reaction to threats, even when the groups are in competition for rights, security, and resources.  We conduct three national survey experiments with a total of 2,420 participants in which we manipulate only racial/ethnic cues in ambiguous news media vignettes depicting potential terrorism and immigration threats.  Compared to Anglos, African Americans and Latinos exhibit substantially higher levels of group empathy and support for minority groups other than their own.  In reaction to these news stories, Anglo respondents were far less likely to side with potentially threatening non-white targets compared to a white target.  African Americans, on the other hand, sided with Arab and Latino targets, supported civil rights protections for these minority outgroups, and committed to political action on their behalf.  We also examine the measurement characteristics of the group empathy scale, and demonstrate its distinctiveness from social and political predispositions such as ethnocentrism, social dominance orientation, authoritarianism, and partisanship.  Finally, we begin to test our claim that group empathy emerges from demographic contextual factors and life experiences unique to minority groups even when they live in racially integrated areas.

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