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The Trump Effect: An Experimental Investigation of the Emboldening Effect of Racially Inflammatory Elite Communication
Open accessAbstract
This article explores the effect of explicitly racial and inflammatory speech by political elites on mass citizens in a societal context where equality norms are widespread and generally heeded yet a subset of citizens nonetheless possesses deeply ingrained racial prejudices. The authors argue that such speech should have an ‘emboldening effect’ among the prejudiced, particularly where it is not clearly and strongly condemned by other elite political actors. To test this argument, the study focuses on the case of the Trump campaign for president in the United States, and utilizes a survey experiment embedded within an online panel study. The results demonstrate that in the absence of prejudiced elite speech, prejudiced citizens constrain the expression of their prejudice. However, in the presence of prejudiced elite speech – particularly when it is tacitly condoned by other elites – the study finds that the prejudiced are emboldened to both express and act upon their prejudices.
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“Despite extensive evidence showing the negative mental health effects of race-related stress in POC [6-11,14-17] and the promise of mindfulness meditation to help these individuals cope [20-24,26,30-32,79], this evidence-based treatment continues to be understudied among this high-risk population in both traditional [30,35,36] and digital formats [46-48].”
From App-Based Mindfulness Meditation for People of Color Who Experience Race-Related Stress: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial (2022) · cites this paper as [15]
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Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Newman, B., Merolla, J. L., Shah, S., Lemi, D. C., Collingwood, L., & Ramakrishnan, S. K.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Riverside (US)
- Southern Methodist University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Merolla, Jennifer L.
- ORCID
- Venue
- British Journal of Political Science
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2020-02-17
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1138-1159
- ISSN
- 0007-1234 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-2112
- OpenAlex
- W3007458762
- Cited by
- 267
- References
- 82
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 47 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 55 · 2021: 51 · 2020: 12
- FWCI
- 48.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- British Journal of Political Science (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Southern California
- Northwestern University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Populism, Right-Wing Movements
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Keywords
- racial prejudice, political elites, Donald Trump, Trump campaign, equality norms, social norms, political communication
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