Nashville News Blog

Very interesting study out of Duke: A group of students looked at how best to counter political misinformation, namely rumors that still dog Obama about being a Muslim. This is possibly one of the first studies to examine political misperception, since political science often fails to distinguish between the misinformed and the uninformed.

What they found is interesting, sad and hilarious. What is called "misperception negation"--interviewers informing respondents that Obama is not, in fact, a Muslim--is utterly unsuccessful in convincing those who actually believe he is a Muslim that their beliefs are totally baseless and stupid. (See "White People Scared of Black Presidents.")

And "corrective affirmation"--informing respondents that Obama is a Christian--actually completely backfires, only reinforcing the respondent's belief that he is a Muslim. In what is referred to as cognitive dissonance, researchers believe the two beliefs are so irreconcilable that the respondent reactively grows more entrenched. EXCEPT when a "non-white" interviewer is present, basically suggesting that people who think Obama is a Muslim are afraid to admit it in front of black people. (See Republicans Trying to Look Outwardly Progressive)

"First, despite administering the experiment on computers, the corrective affirmation treatment was only effective at reducing misperceptions in the presence of non-white experimental administrators, suggesting a strong social desirability effect. In addition, three-way interactions between the treatment, race of the administrator and party identification also indicate that these social desirability effects were more prevalent among Republicans..."

So, when asked, some white people will argue with other white people that Obama is a Muslim. But not in front of a non-white interviewer. Is it that these tea-bagging morons know they're wrong at some deep, fundamental level? Or are they just cowardly racists who don't want to look like racists?