The "I Voted for Obama" Effect

See if this scenario sounds familiar. You’re sitting around with a bunch of friends – generally white people – and someone says something that sounds racist, or at least racially insensitive. There’s an awkward pause and then the offending party comes back with a variation on “I have a lot of black friends who would make that joke.” It kind of makes you cringe.

Now that America has elected its first black president, scenarios like this may be happening more frequently. Daniel Effron is a doctoral student at Stanford University's Department of Psychology. He’s studying racial prejudice amongst white Obama voters since the election.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology: Endorsing Obama licenses favoring Whites

(Photo by Adam Kuban via Flickr/Creative Commons)