Experiments on Racial Priming in Political Campaigns

Since the first half of the twentieth century, whites have become much more accepting of the principle of racial equality even as they have continued to endorse negative racial stereotypes about African-Americans. Some scholars argue that this ambivalence has been exploited by contemporary political elites who have learned to fashion subtle racial appeals that activate these latent attitudes without appearing to violate widely held norms of racial equality. This strategy has been dubbed racial priming. In this brief article, we summarize and evaluate the work in this area, with a particular emphasis on studies that employ experimental research designs.