Interracial Couples: Situational Factors in White Male Reactions

Two problems in the measurement of prejudice are the theoretical orientation underlying its measurement and the sensitivity of prejudice measures to social desirability. Most previous studies of prejudice have either not attempted to use sexual threat as a measurement model or have been plagued by other measurement problems. By introducing an unobtrusive procedure that overcomes those measurement problems, this study has tested a sexual-threat model as well as an incentive-conflict model. It was found that sexual threat does affect responses to interracial couples but that those responses are also affected by the value support that interracial couples provide for white norms, as predicted by incentive conflict.