Support for the Confederate battle flag in the Southern United States: Racism or Southern pride?
Author(s) / Creator(s)
Wright, Joshua D.
Esses, Victoria M.
Abstract / Description
Supporters of the Confederate battle flag often argue that their support is driven by pride in the South, not negative racial attitudes. Opponents of the Confederate battle flag often argue that the flag represents racism, and that support for the flag is an expression of racism and an attempt to maintain oppression of Blacks in the Southern United States. We evaluate these two competing views in explaining attitudes toward the Confederate battle flag in the Southern United States through a survey of 526 Southerners. In the aggregate, our latent variable model suggests that White support for the flag is driven by Southern pride, political conservatism, and blatant negative racial attitudes toward Blacks. Using cluster-analysis we were able to distinguish four distinct sub-groups of White Southerners: Cosmopolitans, New Southerners, Traditionalists, and Supremacists. The greatest support for the Confederate battle flag is seen among Traditionalists and Supremacists; however, Traditionalists do not display blatant negative racial attitudes toward Blacks, while Supremacists do. Traditionalists make up the majority of Confederate battle flag supporters in our sample, weakening the claim that supporters of the flag are generally being driven by negative racial attitudes toward Blacks.
Keyword(s)
racism Confederate flag racial attitudes oppression prejudice Southern United States Southerners Confederate Southern pride principled conservatismPersistent Identifier
Date of first publication
2017-05-05
Journal title
Journal of Social and Political Psychology
Volume
5
Issue
1
Page numbers
224–243
Publisher
PsychOpen GOLD
Publication status
publishedVersion
Review status
peerReviewed
Is version of
Citation
Wright, J. D., & Esses, V. M. (2017). Support for the Confederate battle flag in the Southern United States: Racism or Southern pride? Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 5(1), 224–243. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v5i1.687
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There are no other versions of this object.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Wright, Joshua D.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Esses, Victoria M.
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PsychArchives acquisition timestamp2018-11-26T12:45:31Z
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Made available on2018-11-26T12:45:31Z
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Date of first publication2017-05-05
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Abstract / DescriptionSupporters of the Confederate battle flag often argue that their support is driven by pride in the South, not negative racial attitudes. Opponents of the Confederate battle flag often argue that the flag represents racism, and that support for the flag is an expression of racism and an attempt to maintain oppression of Blacks in the Southern United States. We evaluate these two competing views in explaining attitudes toward the Confederate battle flag in the Southern United States through a survey of 526 Southerners. In the aggregate, our latent variable model suggests that White support for the flag is driven by Southern pride, political conservatism, and blatant negative racial attitudes toward Blacks. Using cluster-analysis we were able to distinguish four distinct sub-groups of White Southerners: Cosmopolitans, New Southerners, Traditionalists, and Supremacists. The greatest support for the Confederate battle flag is seen among Traditionalists and Supremacists; however, Traditionalists do not display blatant negative racial attitudes toward Blacks, while Supremacists do. Traditionalists make up the majority of Confederate battle flag supporters in our sample, weakening the claim that supporters of the flag are generally being driven by negative racial attitudes toward Blacks.en_US
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Publication statuspublishedVersion
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Review statuspeerReviewed
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CitationWright, J. D., & Esses, V. M. (2017). Support for the Confederate battle flag in the Southern United States: Racism or Southern pride? Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 5(1), 224–243. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v5i1.687en_US
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ISSN2195-3325
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Persistent Identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12034/1433
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Persistent Identifierhttps://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.1800
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Language of contenteng
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PublisherPsychOpen GOLD
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Is version ofhttps://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v5i1.687
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Keyword(s)racismen_US
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Keyword(s)Confederate flagen_US
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Keyword(s)racial attitudesen_US
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Keyword(s)oppressionen_US
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Keyword(s)prejudiceen_US
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Keyword(s)Southern United Statesen_US
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Keyword(s)Southernersen_US
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Keyword(s)Confederateen_US
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Keyword(s)Southern prideen_US
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Keyword(s)principled conservatismen_US
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Dewey Decimal Classification number(s)150
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TitleSupport for the Confederate battle flag in the Southern United States: Racism or Southern pride?en_US
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DRO typearticle
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Issue1
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Journal titleJournal of Social and Political Psychology
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Page numbers224–243
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Volume5
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Visible tag(s)Version of Record