They’re calling it the “Obama effect.”
Even before Barack Obama had moved into the White House, America’s first black president was responsible for a noticeable decrease in racial prejudice â?? particularly on the nation’s college campuses â?? according to a new study.
“We saw a dramatic decrease like we’ve never seen before,” said Ashby Plant, a psychology professor at Florida State University and co-author of the “Obama effect” report, targeted for publication in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Plant and a colleague at the University of Wisconsin, psychology professor Patricia Devine, started their study once Obama secured the Democratic Party nomination last summer. Working with graduate students, they each interviewed roughly 150 non-black students at FSU and UW, attempting to gauge a shift in racial bias.