Predicting policy attitudes from general prejudice versus specific intergroup emotions

How are people’s social policy attitudes related to their affective reactions to the social groups affected by those policies? From a threat-based perspective, specific emotions toward a group—above and beyond general prejudice toward that group—should predict attitudes toward a policy affecting the group. To test this, 128 participants reported their support for four social policies, their general and specific affective reactions to each affected group, and the threats ostensibly posed by that group. Although general prejudice failed to predict each policy attitude after controlling for the specific emotions, specific emotions did indeed significantly predict each policy attitude after controlling for general prejudice. Moreover, these specific emotions tended to mediate predicted relationships between perceived threats and policy attitudes. In all, these results highlight the benefits of assessing specific intergroup emotions as they relate to political arenas.