White (but Not Black) Americans Continue to See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game; White Conservatives (but Not Moderates or Liberals) See Themselves as Losing

Abstract

In a 2011 article in this journal entitled “Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing” ( Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 215–218), Norton and Sommers assessed Black and White Americans’ perceptions of anti-Black and anti-White bias across the previous 6 decades—from the 1950s to the 2000s. They presented two key findings: White (but not Black) respondents perceived decreases in anti-Black bias to be associated with increases in anti-White bias, signaling the perception that racism is a zero-sum game; White respondents rated anti-White bias as more pronounced than anti-Black bias in the 2000s, signaling the perception that they were losing the zero-sum game. We collected new data to examine whether the key findings would be evident nearly a decade later and whether political ideology would moderate perceptions. Liberal, moderate, and conservative White (but not Black) Americans alike believed that racism is a zero-sum game. Liberal White Americans saw racism as a zero-sum game they were winning by a lot, moderate White Americans saw it as a game they were winning by only a little, and conservative White Americans saw it as a game they were losing. This work has clear implications for public policy and behavioral science and lays the groundwork for future research that examines to what extent racial differences in perceptions of racism by political ideology are changing over time.