Replication Data for: Validating Whites’ Reactions to the “Racial Shift”

A prominent paradigm demonstrates many White Americans respond negatively to information on their declining population share. But this paradigm considers this “racial shift” in a single hierarchy-challenging context that produces similar status threat responses across conceptually distinct outcomes, undercutting the ability to both explain the causes of Whites’ social and political responses and advance theorizing about native majorities’ responses to demographic change. We test whether evidence for Whites’ responses to demographic change varies across three distinct hierarchy-challenging contexts: society at large, culture, and politics. We find little evidence any racial shift information instills status threat or otherwise changes attitudes or behavioral intentions, and do not replicate evidence for reactions diverging by left- vs. right-wing political attachments. We conclude with what our well-powered (n=2100) results suggest about a paradigm and intervention used prominently, with results cited frequently, to understand native majorities’ responses to demographic change and potential challenges to multi-racial democracy.

一项主流研究范式显示，多数美国白人在获悉自身人口占比持续下滑的相关信息时，会产生负面回应。但该范式仅在单一的挑战层级结构情境下讨论此类「种族结构变动」，该情境下不同概念范畴的结果均会引发相似的地位威胁反应，这既削弱了学界解释白人社会与政治回应成因的能力，也阻碍了针对本土多数群体应对人口结构变化之反应的理论建构。本研究旨在检验，白人针对人口结构变化的回应证据，是否会因三类不同的挑战层级结构情境而存在差异：即宏观社会、文化与政治场域。本研究未发现任何证据表明，种族结构变动相关信息会引发地位威胁，或是改变白人的态度与行为意向；同时也未能重复验证「白人的回应会因左翼与右翼政治倾向而产生分化」这一结论。本研究最后结合统计效力充足（样本量n=2100）的研究结果，对当前被广泛应用、且被频繁引用的、用于理解本土多数群体应对人口结构变化及多种族民主所面临潜在挑战的研究范式与干预手段进行了讨论。