Evidence about racial discrimination and White Republicans’ beliefs and attitudes

OBJECTIVE: We explore whether people's beliefs and attitudes about race are responsive to evidence about the prevalence of discrimination. Partisan polarization in recent years around racial issues, as well as ego- and system-defensive motivations, may prevent people from accepting even strong, easily communicated evidence about discrimination. METHOD: This article replicates earlier work (Bergan et al., 2025) communicating evidence about discrimination against Blacks to explore two research questions with a sample of White Republicans. In an online experiment, we evaluate whether exposure to evidence about discrimination from correspondence studies influences White Republicans' beliefs about discrimination and racial resentment. We also explore the influence on political outcomes such as vote choice and attitudes about the major parties and major party candidates. RESULTS: We find that exposure to evidence about discrimination decreases White Republicans' denial of discrimination, as well as racial resentment, but we find minimal evidence of an effect on political outcomes. CONCLUSION: The results contribute to the scholarship on interventions to reduce prejudice and raise questions about the potential for racial beliefs to influence broader political attitudes and behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Ethnic group · Prejudice (legal term) · Race (biology) · Racial group · Racism · White (mutation) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research · Social and Intergroup Psychology