Examining Interracial Marriage Attitudes As Value Expressive Attitudes

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which attitudes towards Black/White interracial marriage were predicted by certain egalitarian-based (equality, mature love, benevolence) and conservative/ tradition-based values (obedience, conformity, social order, tradition). It was also predicted the strength of value–attitude link would directly affect the extent to which values (egalitarian or traditional) manifest themselves in proattitudinal messages, thereby indicating the degree to which individuals are functional when creating proattitudinal messages. The data suggest that the value factors of equality, benevolent success, and power/tradition predict positive attitudes toward Black/White interracial marriage. Additionally, the functional extension hypothesis was significant for the benevolent success model.

Keywords:

• attitude functions
• interracial marriage
• value expressive attitudes

Notes

This manuscript is adapted from the author's dissertation (Michigan State, 1999), which was completed under the direction of Dr. Sandi Smith.

¹ If participants were White they were instructed that their sibling was marrying someone African American. If the participants where African American the sibling was marrying a White person. If participants were Latino/a, Asian American, or Pacific Islander the sibling was marrying a Black individual. Close to 80% of the sample was either Black or White.

² According to Guetzkow (1950) the coding of qualitative data involves the operations of (a) separating the material into units and (b) establishing category sets into which the unitized material maybe classified. The reliability of the coding scheme depends on the accuracy with which the unitizing and subsequent classifying are carried out (p. 47). Guetzkow's U is a measure of unitizing reliability; it is a comparison of the number of units obtained by two coders. U is the difference between coders as a percentage sum of the number of units obtained by each coder (ranging from .00 (no difference)–1.00 (large difference). where O₁ represents the number of units obtained by the first coder, and O₂ is the total obtained by the second coder.