Are Americans Ambivalent Towards Racial Policies?

Theory: The variability in individual respondent's considerations over racial policy may be due to uncertainty or to ambivalence. Ambivalence is distinct from uncertainty in that it stems from incommensurable choices, and cannot be altered with additional information. Methods: Using a heteroskedastic probit technique, we consider six separate core beliefs potentially relevant towards racial policy choice (modem racism, antiblack stereotyping, authoritarianism, individualism, and anti-Semitism) for four different policy choices. We evaluate two separate models for the source of individual variance: conflicting values and direct effects of values. Results: Our analysis indicates that modem racism trumps rival explanatory variables in explanations of racial policy choice, and that variability in attitudes toward racial policy is due to uncertainty, and not to ambivalence