Cross-Racial Appraisal as Related to Attitude Ambivalence and Cognitive Complexity

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that Whites' evaluations of Blacks who are presented positively or negatively tend to be more extreme than evaluations of similar White targets. In Study 1, White subjects rated a Black or White confederate who was responsible for success or failure at a joint task. There was a clear cross-race polarization of evaluations. Study 2 tested two possible explanations of the polarization phenomenon-the authors' ambivalence formulation and Linville and Jones's cognitive complexity hypothesis. As hypothesized, ambivalence was directly related to favorability of impression ratings in the success condition. In the failure condition, the correlation was in the predicted inverse direction but was not significant. The difference between the two correlations, as expected, was significant. No support was obtained for the cognitive complexity hypothesis. Rather, in the failure condition complexity was directly related to the unfavorability of ratings, contrary to the hypothesis.