Meta-Psychology, 2021, vol 5, MP.2019.1778
https://doi.org/10.15626/MP.2019.1778
Article type: Replication Report
Published under the CC-BY4.0 license

Open data: Yes
Open materials: Yes

Open and reproducible analysis: Yes
Open reviews and editorial process: Yes

Preregistration: Yes

Edited by: Rickard Carlsson
Reviewed by: L. O’Brien, Å. Innes-Ker, U. Schimmack

Analysis reproduced by: R. Carlsson
All supplementary files can be accessed at OSF:

https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/KX3EJ

Perceived Discrimination against
Black Americans and White Americans

L.J Zigerell
Illinois State University

Abstract
A widely-cited study reported evidence that White Americans reported higher ratings of how much Whites are
the victims of discrimination in the United States than of how much Blacks are the victims of discrimination in
the United States. However, much fewer than half of White Americans rated discrimination against Whites in the
United States today to be greater or more frequent than discrimination against Blacks in the United States today,
in data from the American National Election Studies 2012 Time Series Study or in preregistered analyses of data
from the American National Election Studies 2016 Time Series Study or from a 2017 national nonprobability survey.
Given that relative discrimination against Black Americans is a compelling justification for policies to reduce Black
disadvantage, results from these three surveys suggest that White Americans’ policy preferences have much potential
to move in a direction that disfavors programs intended to reduce Black disadvantage.

Keywords: race, discrimination, perceptions

From slavery through Reconstruction through the
civil rights movement and modern times, race has been
the “most difficult subject” in the United States (Kinder
and Sanders, 1996, p. 11). The U.S. population has
become more racially diverse, but comparison of the
treatment of Black Americans to the treatment of White
Americans has remained an important comparison for
assessing racial discrimination in the United States. Em-
pirical evidence of discrimination against Black Ameri-
cans (e.g., Quillian et al., 2017) can be balanced at least
partly with evidence of discrimination against White
Americans (e.g., Axt et al., 2016), as can prominent
claims of discrimination in particular domains, such
as police disproportionately searching Black Americans
(LaFraniere and Lehren, 2015) or affirmative action
in college admissions disadvantaging White Americans
(Hurley, 2016).

The presence of evidence of discrimination against
Black Americans and of evidence of discrimination
against White Americans raises the question of the di-

rection and size of the net balance of Black/White dis-
crimination in the United States. Perceptions of this bal-
ance have the potential to influence legal outcomes and
influence support for race-targeted programs (Carter
and Murphy, 2015, p. 274). Survey results reported
in Norton and Sommers (2011) indicated that White
Americans now perceive this balance of discrimination
to disfavor Whites, in a finding that has been cited
in media outlets such as the New York Times (2011)
and NPR (2011) and has been frequently cited in so-
cial science publications (e.g., Todd et al., 2012; Mayrl
and Saperstein, 2013; Cabrera, 2014; Hughey, 2014;
Wilkins et al., 2015; Major and Kaiser, 2017; and West
and Eaton, 2019).

However, the inference from Norton and Sommers
(2011) that “Whites have now come to view anti-White
bias as a bigger societal problem than anti-Black bias”
(p. 215) might be due to the research design of
that study. Participants in the Norton and Sommers
(2011) study were asked to “indicate how much you



2

think [Blacks/Whites] [were/are] the victims of dis-
crimination in the United States in each of the following
decades” (p. 217), with participants reporting percep-
tions about discrimination against Blacks in each decade
from the 1950s to the 2000s and then reporting per-
ceptions about discrimination against Whites in each
decade from the 1950s to the 2000s (p. 218). Consecu-
tively rating discrimination against Blacks in a string of
decades might have caused participants to use as their
reference point the participant’s perception of discrimi-
nation against Blacks in the immediately prior decade,
instead of using as the reference point the participant’s
perception of discrimination against Whites in the cor-
responding decade; the same phenomenon might have
occurred when participants subsequently rated discrim-
ination against Whites, focusing on ratings of discrimi-
nation against Whites being sensible across decades for
Whites instead of focusing on ratings being sensible in
comparison to Blacks in a given decade. Comparing par-
ticipant ratings of discrimination against Blacks in the
2000s to participant ratings of discrimination against
Whites in the 2000s might thus produce an incorrect
inference about relative perceived discrimination in the
2000s.

For assessing whether White Americans really do per-
ceive there to be more discrimination in the United
States today against Whites than against Blacks, the
three studies below reported on data from large-sample
surveys that permit more straightforward research de-
signs that focus participants on the contemporary time
period and/or on direct comparisons of discrimination
against Blacks and Whites in the United States today.

Study 1: ANES 2012 Time Series Study
[Non-preregistered]

Data were from the American National Election Stud-
ies (ANES) 2012 Time Series Study (American National
Election Studies, 2016a). The author’s Institutional Re-
view Board does not require review and approval for
analysis of de-identified datasets such as the ANES 2012
Time Series Study.

Participants

Data analysis was limited to participants coded
as non-Hispanic White who provided substantive re-
sponses to the analyzed items. Per ANES documenta-
tion (2016b, p. 7): the target population for the sur-
vey was adult U.S. citizens; the key item is from post-
election interviews, which were conducted between 7
November 2012 and 24 January 2013; and the esti-
mated AAPOR RR1 response rates for pre-election inter-
views were 38% for the face-to-face mode and 2% for

the internet mode, with respective re-interview rates for
the post-election interview of 94% and 93%.

Measures

The key item for this analysis is: “How much discrimi-
nation is there in the United States today against each of
the following groups?”. Target groups presented in ran-
dom order included Blacks and Whites. Response op-
tions were: “A great deal”, “A lot”, “A moderate amount”,
“A little”, and “None at all”. The key item was used
to construct three dichotomous variables, respectively
coded 1 if a participant rated discrimination against
Blacks greater than discrimination against Whites, rated
discrimination against Blacks equal to discrimination
against Whites, and rated discrimination against Whites
greater than discrimination against Blacks. The 15 non-
Hispanic White post-election interview cases without a
substantive rating of both discrimination against Blacks
and discrimination against Whites were excluded from
the analysis, producing a sample size of 3260 non-
Hispanic Whites.

Results

For non-Hispanic White participants, weighted point
estimates and 95% confidence intervals indicated that
54% [51, 56] rated discrimination against Blacks
greater than discrimination against Whites, 37% [35,
39] rated discrimination against Blacks equal to dis-
crimination against Whites, and 10% [9, 11] rated dis-
crimination against Whites greater than discrimination
against Blacks. The finding that only a small percent-
age of non-Hispanic Whites rated discrimination against
Whites greater than discrimination against Blacks held
when the analysis was limited to participants who re-
sponded online, in which concern about social desirabil-
ity biasing reporting is lessened: 11% [10, 13] of non-
Hispanic Whites with substantive responses to the dis-
crimination items reported greater perceived discrimi-
nation against Whites than against Blacks. Moreover,
weighted analyses of the general discrimination item
coded from 0 for discrimination rated at “None at all”
to 1 for discrimination rated at “A great deal” indicated
that, among non-Hispanic White participants in the on-
line survey, respective mean ratings were 0.31 and 0.48
for discrimination against Whites and discrimination
against Blacks, with respective means of 0.24 and 0.73
among non-Hispanic Black participants.



3

Study 2: ANES 2016 Time Series Study
[Confirmatory with Modifications Indicated]

In assessing whether the Study 1 finding replicated
in the ANES 2016 Time Series Study, data analyses fol-
lowed a plan preregistered at the Open Science Frame-
work (https://osf.io/n7z4a). Data were from the ANES
2016 Time Series Study (American National Election
Studies, 2018a). The author’s Institutional Review
Board does not require review and approval for analysis
of de-identified datasets such as the ANES 2016 Time
Series Study.

Hypotheses

The ANES 2016 Time Series Study included the Study
1 item and items regarding police and federal govern-
ment discrimination against Blacks relative to Whites.
The corresponding preregistered hypotheses were:

1. H1 [directional]: White Americans will report
perceiving more discrimination in the United
States today against blacks than against whites.

2. H2 [directional]: White Americans will report
perceiving that the police treat whites better than
blacks.

3. H3 [non-directional]: White Americans might or
might not report perceiving that the federal gov-
ernment treats blacks better than whites.

H2 is directional and reflects the expectation that partic-
ipants will perceive more police discrimination against
Blacks than against Whites, given factors such as then-
recent prominent media coverage of police shootings
of Black Americans after the 2014 killing of Michael
Brown in Ferguson, Missouri (e.g., “Study finds police
fatally shoot unarmed black men at disproportionate
rates”, Lowery, 2016). H3 is non-directional, reflect-
ing a lack of similarly prominent media coverage sug-
gesting anti-Black discrimination by the federal govern-
ment and the possibility that some participants might
perceive government assistance to equally or dispro-
portionately benefit Blacks, such as an association be-
tween Blacks and welfare receipt (Brown-Iannuzzi et
al., 2017). H1 is directional and reflects the expectation
that the ANES 2012 Time Series Study pattern will repli-
cate and the expectation that perceived discrimination
against Blacks will be greater than perceived discrimina-
tion against Whites given the relative prominence of dis-
crimination against Blacks in police shootings and other
domains, coupled with Black disadvantage in education
(Sablich, 2016) and wealth (Traub et al., 2016).

Participants

Data analysis was limited to participants coded as
non-Hispanic White or non-Hispanic Black and who
provided substantive responses to the analyzed items,
which were asked in the post-election interview. Per
ANES documentation (2018b, pp. 4-5): target popu-
lations for the surveys were adult U.S. citizens in D.C.
and the 48 contiguous states for the face-to-face mode
and adult U.S. citizens in D.C. and the 50 states for
the internet mode; the key items are drawn from post-
election interviews, which were conducted between 9
November 2016 and 8 January 2017; and the estimated
AAPOR RR1 response rates for pre-election interviews
were 50% for the face-to-face mode and 44% for the in-
ternet mode, with respective re-interview rates for the
post-election interview of 90% and 84%.

Measures

The post-election interview items analyzed were:

1. “How much discrimination is there in the United
States today against each of the following
groups?”. Target groups presented in random or-
der included Blacks and Whites. Response op-
tions were: “A great deal”, “A lot”, “A moder-
ate amount”, “A little”, and “None at all”. Post-
election interview cases without a substantive re-
sponse to both items were excluded from the anal-
ysis: 99 non-Hispanic Whites (4%) and 26 non-
Hispanic Blacks (8%).

2. “In general, do the police treat whites better than
blacks, treat blacks better than whites, or treat
them both the same?”. Response options were:
“Treat whites better”, “Treat both the same”, and
“Treat blacks better”. Post-election interview cases
without a substantive response to this item were
excluded from the analysis: 34 non-Hispanic
Whites (1%) and 7 non-Hispanic Blacks (2%).

3. “In general, does the federal government treat
whites better than blacks, treat blacks better than
whites, or treat them both the same?”. Response
options were: “Treat whites better”, “Treat both
the same”, and “Treat blacks better”. Post-election
interview cases without a substantive response to
this item were excluded from the analysis: 41
non-Hispanic Whites (2%) and 8 non-Hispanic
Blacks (2%).

The software used in the analysis (StataCorp, 2017)
did not report standard errors or confidence intervals
using the preregistered commands with weighting, be-
cause at least one stratum had a single sampling unit

https://osf.io/n7z4a


4

Table 1
Reported Perceptions of Discrimination [ANES 2016 Time Series Study].

Non-Hispanic Non-Hispanic
White Americans Black Americans

0.66 0.79
Greater discrimination against Blacks than Whites [0.64, 0.69] [0.72, 0.86]

[0.64, 0.68] [0.71, 0.85]
0.27 0.19

Equal discrimination against Whites than Black [0.25, 0.29] [0.13, 0.26]
[0.25, 0.29] [0.13, 0.27]

0.07 0.02
Greater discrimination against Whites than Blacks [0.05, 0.08] [0.00, 0.04]

[0.06, 0.08] [0.01, 0.05]
0.51 0.83

The police treat Whites better than Blacks [0.48, 0.53] [0.78, 0.88]
[0.48, 0.53] [0.78, 0.88]

0.48 0.14
The police treat Whites and Blacks the same [0.46, 0.51] [0.09, 0.19]

[0.46, 0.51] [0.10, 0.20]
0.01 0.03

The police treat Blacks better than Whites [0.01, 0.02] [0.00, 0.05]
[0.01, 0.02] [0.01, 0.07]

0.30 0.77
The federal government treats Whites better than Blacks [0.28, 0.32] [0.69, 0.84]

[0.28, 0.32] [0.68, 0.83]
0.47 0.20

The federal government treats Whites and Blacks the same [0.45, 0.49] [0.13, 0.28]
[0.45, 0.49] [0.14, 0.29]

0.23 0.03
The federal government treats Blacks better than Whites [0.21, 0.25] [0.00, 0.06]

[0.21, 0.25] [0.01, 0.08]

Note. Top cell values indicate point estimates for decimal percentages in weighted analyses based on preregistered use of the
Stata svy: mean command, middle cell values are 95% confidence intervals from the Stata svy: mean command with non-
preregistered use of the scaled option, and bottom cell values are 95% confidence intervals based on non-preregistered use of
the Stata svy: prop command for proportions. Sample sizes for the general discrimination item, the police discrimination item,
and the federal government discrimination item were 2530, 2595, and 2588 for non-Hispanic White participants and 316, 335,
and 334 for non-Hispanic Black participants.

so that a variance could not be estimated for that stra-
tum. Non-preregistered analyses were therefore con-
ducted with each known available non-missing option
in the software for handling weighting for strata with
a single sampling unit (centered, certainty, and scaled);
results are reported for the option that produced the
largest standard errors, which was the scaled option.

Results

Results in Table 1 and Figure 1 indicate that, among
non-Hispanic Whites, 66% reported greater perceived
discrimination against Blacks than against Whites, 27%

reported equal perceived discrimination against Blacks
and Whites, and 7% reported greater perceived discrim-
ination against Whites than against Blacks; respective
percentages were 51%, 48%, and 1% for the police dis-
crimination item and 30%, 47%, and 23% for the fed-
eral government item. Results regarding Whites’ gen-
eral perceptions of discrimination and Whites’ percep-
tions of discrimination by police were consistent with
the preregistered directional hypotheses. Ends of 95%
confidence intervals for the paired percentages did not
overlap for any of the three comparisons of the per-
centage that reported better treatment of Black Amer-
icans to the percentage that reported better treatment



5

Federal government treats Blacks better than Whites

Federal government treats Whites and Blacks the same

Federal government treats Whites better than Blacks

 

Police treat Blacks better than Whites

Police treat Whites and Blacks the same

Police treat Whites better than Blacks

Greater discrimination against Whites than Blacks

Equal discrimination against Blacks and Whites

Greater discrimination against Blacks than Whites

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Percentages for Non−Hispanic Whites Percentages for Non−Hispanic Blacks

Figure 1. Non-Hispanic White Americans’ and Non-Hispanic Black Americans’ reported perceptions of discrimination
[ANES 2016 Time Series Study]
Note. Error bars indicate ends of the 95% confidence intervals for weighted analyses based on the Stata svy: mean command.
Source: ANES 2016 Time Series Study. Graph produced in R (R Core Team, 2017) using ggplot2 (Wickham, 2017).

of White Americans. Moreover, in a non-preregistered
analysis, the p-value was less than p=.001 for a Wald
test of the hypothesis that the constant in a linear
regression predicting a dichotomous variable coded 1
for participants who reported greater discrimination
against Black Americans equaled the constant in a lin-
ear regression predicting a dichotomous variable coded
1 for participants who reported greater discrimination
against White Americans. Table 1 results also indicated
that, in all three items, Black Americans perceived more
favorable treatment for Whites than for Blacks, with
ends of the 95% confidence intervals not overlapping
for any comparison of the percentage that reported bet-
ter treatment of Black Americans to the percentage that
reported better treatment of White Americans.

Non-preregistered weighted analyses indicated that
the key inference held when limiting the analysis to
participants who responded online: 7% [5, 8] of non-
Hispanic Whites with substantive responses to the gen-
eral discrimination items reported greater perceived dis-
crimination against Whites than against Blacks. More-
over, non-preregistered weighted analyses of the gen-
eral discrimination item coded from 0 for discrimina-
tion rated at “None at all” to 1 for discrimination rated
at “A great deal” indicated that, among non-Hispanic
White participants in the online survey, respective mean
ratings were 0.27 and 0.58 for discrimination against
Whites and discrimination against Blacks, with respec-
tive means of 0.20 and 0.79 among non-Hispanic Black
participants.

Study 3: 2017 YouGov Survey [Confirmatory with
Modifications Indicated]

The ANES general discrimination items analyzed in
Study 1 and Study 2 asked participants to respond to
an item about the level of discrimination against Blacks
and to a separate item about the level of discrimination
against Whites; the ANES items also referred to “dis-
crimination” in a way that could permit participants to
respond based on a combination of the perceived fre-
quency of discrimination and the perceived strength of
discrimination. Providing a clearer inference about par-
ticipant perceptions, the key item in Study 3 asked par-
ticipants to directly compare their perceived frequency
of discrimination against Blacks to their perceived fre-
quency of discrimination against Whites.

Data analysis of the 2017 survey followed a plan
preregistered at the Open Science Framework (https:
//osf.io/q7ufz), with one hypothesis, reflecting the ex-
pectation that the key pattern in Study 1 and Study 2
will replicate:

1. H1: A higher proportion of non-Hispanic Whites
will report that Black Americans are more often
the victim of discrimination in the United States
today than White Americans are, compared to
the proportion of non-Hispanic Whites that report
that White Americans are more often the victim
of discrimination in the United States today than
Black Americans are.

U.S. resident adult participants from a YouGov opt-in

https://osf.io/q7ufz
https://osf.io/q7ufz


6

Table 2
Reported Perceptions of Discrimination [2017 YouGov Survey].

Non-Hispanic Non-Hispanic
White Americans Black Americans

0.43 0.90
Black Americans are more often the victim of discrimination [0.36, 0.51] [0.81, 0.98]

[0.36, 0.51] [0.78, 0.96]
0.42 0.07

Equal often discrimination [0.35, 0.50] [0.00, 0.15]
[0.35, 0.50] [0.03, 0.19]

0.12 0.01
White Americans are more often the victim of discrimination [0.07, 0.16] [-0.01, 0.02]

[0.08, 0.17] [0.00, 0.05]

Note. Top cell values indicate point estimates for corresponding decimal percentages in weighted analyses and middle cell val-
ues are 95% confidence intervals from the Stata svy: mean command, both based on preregistered use of the Stata svy: mean
command. Bottom cell values are 95% confidence intervals based on non-preregistered use of the Stata svy: prop command
for proportions. The sample size was 359 for non-Hispanic White Americans and 52 for non-Hispanic Black Americans, which
included 8 non-Hispanic White participants and 1 non-Hispanic Black participant who were coded as skipping the item.

survey panel completed an online survey fielded be-
tween 27 July 2017 and 31 July 2017, with a final sam-
ple of 2,000 participants, of which the randomization
assigned 359 non-Hispanic Whites and 52 non-Hispanic
Blacks to the item for this study; see Appendix A for
more information on the construction of the sample.
The key item was: “In the United States today, which
of the following two groups is more often the victim
of discrimination, compared to the other group?”. Re-
sponse options were “Black Americans”, “White Ameri-
cans”, and “Both groups are the victim of discrimination
equally often in the United States today”, with the order
of the first two response options randomly reversed and
the third response option always third. The key item
was used to construct three dichotomous variables, re-
spectively coded 1 if the participant selected the “Black
Americans”, “White Americans”, and “Both groups...”
options. The research for Study 3 received approval
from the author’s Institutional Review Board.

Results for weighted analyses reported in Table 2 in-
dicate that a larger percentage of non-Hispanic Whites
selected the option indicating that Black Americans are
more often the victim of discrimination in the United
States today (43%), compared to the percentage that
selected the option indicating that White Americans are
more often the victim of discrimination in the United
States today (12%); the p-value was less than p=.001
for a Wald test of the hypothesis that the constant in a
linear regression predicting the “Black Americans” out-
come variable equaled the constant in a linear regres-
sion predicting the “White Americans” outcome vari-
able, supporting the preregistered directional hypoth-

esis. Moreover, results indicated that 42% of non-
Hispanic Whites selected the option that both groups
are the victim of discrimination equally often in the
United States today.

General Discussion

Results reported in Norton and Sommers (2011) in-
dicated that, in the United States today, Whites per-
ceive that Whites are the victims of discrimination more
than Blacks are the victims of discrimination. However,
analyses of data from three recent large-sample national
surveys indicated that White Americans do not perceive
discrimination the United States today against Whites to
be greater or more frequent than discrimination against
Blacks. This discrepancy might be due to the research
design of Norton and Sommers (2011), in which par-
ticipants rated discrimination against Blacks in a se-
ries of decades and then rated discrimination against
Whites in a series of decades, but were not asked to di-
rectly compare discrimination in the United States today
against Whites to discrimination in the United States to-
day against Blacks.

Discussing results from the 2016 PRRI/Brookings Im-
migration Survey, Jones et al. (2016) reported that 57%
of White Americans agreed that “Today discrimination
against whites has become as big a problem as discrimi-
nation against blacks and other minorities” (p. 2). This
result might be perceived to be in tension with the pat-
terns reported for non-Hispanic Whites in the studies
above, but this finding does not indicate that Whites be-
lieve that Whites face more discrimination than Blacks
face; the 57% estimate is consistent with Study 3 re-



7

sults in which a combined 54% of non-Hispanic Whites
reported the perception that, relative to the frequency
of discrimination against Black Americans, White Amer-
icans are more often (12%) or equally often (42%) the
victim of discrimination in the United States today.

This 42% estimate from Study 3 of the percentage of
White Americans who perceive equality in the frequency
of Black/White discrimination can be paired with esti-
mates of Black/White discrimination equality of 37%
and 27% from Study 1 and Study 2 to produce the
inference that a nontrivial percentage of White Ameri-
cans perceive there to be similar levels of discrimination
against Blacks as against Whites. This perception and
the perception of more discrimination against White
Americans than against Black Americans can have im-
portant consequences for attitudes and policy prefer-
ences. For example, Wellman, Liu, and Wilkins (2016)
reported results suggesting that “when White people
perceive increased anti-White bias, it leads them to view
interracial relations as zero-sum and to reject Affirma-
tive Action” (p. 433), and Wilkins et al. (2015) reported
results suggesting that “perceiving greater bias against
men or Whites may be associated with favoring policies
that ultimately hurt women and Blacks” (p. 11). To
the extent that Norton and Sommers (2011) overesti-
mated the percentage of White Americans who perceive
there to be more discrimination against Whites than
against Blacks in the United States today, Norton and
Sommers (2011) might cause an overestimate of the po-
tential change in White Americans’ attitudes that might
have already occurred due to increases in perceived
anti-White discrimination. Discrimination against Black
Americans is a compelling justification for policies to
reduce Black disadvantage, and results from Studies 1
through 3 suggest that White Americans’ preferences
have more potential to become less favorable about pro-
grams that are intended to reduce Black disadvantage,
compared to estimates of this potential based on Norton
and Sommers (2011).

Author Contact

Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to: L.J Zigerell, ljzigerell@IllinoisState.edu,
ORCID 0000-0003-4262-8405.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Eric Plutzer for comments on a
prior version of the manuscript, Michael I. Norton for
providing information on Norton and Sommers (2011)
and for pointers to and suggestions for citation of re-
lated studies, and Laurie O’Brien, Åse Innes-Ker, and Ul-
rich Schimmack for their reviews.

Conflict of Interest and Funding

The author declares no conflict of interest.
Documentation for the ANES 2012 Time Series Study

(American National Election Studies, 2016b) indicated
that the ANES received funding from National Science
Foundation Grants SES-0937715 and SES-0937727, the
University of Michigan, and Stanford University. Docu-
mentation for the ANES 2016 Time Series Study (Amer-
ican National Election Studies, 2018b) indicated that
the study was funded by National Science Foundation
Grants SES-1444721 and SES-1444910. However, my
analyses of ANES data received no funding. The 2017
YouGov survey received funding from Illinois State Uni-
versity New Faculty Start-up Support and from the Illi-
nois State University College of Arts and Sciences.

Author Contributions

L.J Zigerell is the sole author of this contribution.

Open Science Practices

This article earned the Preregistration plus, Open
Data and the Open Materials badge for preregistering
the hypothesis and analysis before data collection, and
for making the data and materials openly available. It
has been verified that the analysis reproduced the re-
sults presented in the article. The entire editorial pro-
cess, including the open reviews, are published in the
online supplement.

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9

Appendix A

Text description of the 2017 survey, drawn from the
data deliverables from YouGov:

YouGov interviewed 2040 respondents who
were then matched down to a sample of
2000 to produce the final dataset. The
respondents were matched to a sampling
frame on gender, age, race, education, ide-
ology, and political interest. The frame
was constructed by stratified sampling from
the full 2010 American Community Survey
(ACS) sample with selection within strata by
weighted sampling with replacements (us-
ing the person weights on the public use
file). Data on voter registration status and
turnout were matched to this frame using
the November 2010 Current Population Sur-
vey. Data on interest in politics and party
identification were then matched to this
frame from the 2007 Pew Religious Life Sur-
vey.

The matched cases were weighted to the
sampling frame using propensity scores.
The matched cases and the frame were
combined and a logistic regression was es-

timated for inclusion in the frame. The
propensity score function included age, gen-
der, race/ethnicity, years of education, re-
gion, voter registration status, political in-
terest, and ideology. The propensity scores
were grouped into deciles of the estimated
propensity score in the frame and post-
stratified according to these deciles. The
weights were then post-stratified to a four-
way stratification of gender, four-category
age, four-category race, and four-category
education, to produce the final weight.

Further details on the 2017 YouGov survey sample:

100% Eligibility rate
64.4% RR3
3,349 Invitations
-970 Non-responses

2,379 Starts
-134 Refusals

-88 Partial completions
2,157 Completions
-117 Completions screened out for speeding

through the items/high refusal rates
2,040 Sample matched down to 2,000


	Study 1: ANES 2012 Time Series Study [Non-preregistered]
	Participants
	Measures
	Results

	Study 2: ANES 2016 Time Series Study [Confirmatory with Modifications Indicated]
	Hypotheses
	Participants
	Measures
	Results

	Study 3: 2017 YouGov Survey [Confirmatory with Modifications Indicated]
	General Discussion
	Author Contact
	Acknowledgements
	Conflict of Interest and Funding
	Author Contributions
	Open Science Practices