Social media and racism: A state by
state analysis of post 2012
Presidential election tweets
By Cory Williams
Faculty Advisor: Kilian Garvey, PhD
The University of Louisiana – Monroe
College of Business and Social Sciences
Department of Psychology
Morality
• A person's standards of behavior or beliefs
concerning what is and is not acceptable for
them to do.
[and while we did not directly measure moral cognition,
most research in this area has found that conservative
political and religious orientation, which we did
measure, points to a more pronounced “in group”
moral worldview]
Big Three of Morality
• Autonomy (personal)
• Community
• Divinity
The Golden Rule
• Buddhism- Just as I am so are they, just as
they are so am I
• Taoism- Regard your neighbor’s gain as your
own gain, and your neighbor loss as your loss
• Christianity- Therefore all things whatsoever
would that men should do to you, do ye even
so to them
Racism: The poor treatment of or
violence against people because of
their race
Intelligence
• Those with lower general intelligence are less
trusting, less sensitive of interpersonal cues,
and less accurate in deciphering other
people’s intentions and behaviors (Tuschman,
2013, p. 187)
In Group/Out Group
• Some churches are a form of in group
• Not accepting other than the dominate color
of that church
Twitter
• A social media website where people can
make post that are no longer than 140
characters
• Does that limit make a difference?
Map of 2013 racist tweets
Electoral Map
Negative Tweets about the Reelection
2012 tweets
Results (n = 50)
One way correlations
1= Racist Tweets
2= Conservative
political orientation
3= Religious Beliefs
2
3
4
r=.590
p < .001
r=.639
p < .001
r=-.421
p = .005
r=.75
p < .001
r=-.187
p = .194
r=-.460
p < .001
4=IQ
Multiple regression found that only self-described higher belief in god
explained the variance (R2 = .408, F(1,40)=27.61, p<.001).
Conclusions
While self described “belief in God” explained most of the
variance in sending racist tweets, we believe there might be
something else involved.
To our knowledge, very few if any religions encourage
ignorance, insensitivity, and outright racism, nor do political
parties.
However, there is a tendency for some people to feel more
comfortable with tighter and more exclusionary in-groups,
and they may be more likely to identify as political
conservatives versus political liberals, and they may be more
likely to join rigid “social” groups, including, but not limited to,
conservative churches.
Implications:
If racism, bigotry, and insensitivity are to be addressed,
and, hopefully, reduced if not eliminated, the
fundamental underlying “causes” must be identified.
It may be difficult, if not impossible, to “get” someone to
like someone they do not, however, if this is being caused
by tighter ingroup v outgroup orientation, it may be
helpful to change to topic of conversation to “we’re all on
the same team.”
To wit
Michael Sam: Openly gay football
player at the University of Missouri
accepted and supported by the people
that matter (his teammates) because they
don’t see him as gay, they see him as a member
of the team