Abstract
Conservatives report much more favorable attitudes toward Confederate symbols (e.g., flags, monuments) than liberals. However, little work has examined factors that mediate or explain this robust political difference. Across two studies, we explored whether knowledge of historical racism mediates political differences in Confederate symbol attitudes. In a predominantly White internet sample (N = 227, U.S. South), Study 1 found that the association between political conservatism and attitudes toward Confederate symbols was mediated by historical knowledge. Further, this mediation effect remained after adjusting for Southern identity. Study 2 replicated the predicted mediation effect in a racially diverse university sample and found that it obtains across racial-ethnic groups (N = 557, U.S. Southeast). These results suggest that ignorance of historical racism helps to explain political differences in Confederate symbol attitudes. We discuss implications of these findings for research on the connection between historical knowledge and racial attitudes (i.e., the Marley hypothesis).
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
