Skin in the game: Race, ingroup identification, and attitudes toward paying college athletes.

Abstract

Objectives: The present studies examined two dimensions of racial ingroup identification, using them as predictors of Black and White Americans' attitudes toward paying college athletes. Following Leach et al. (2008), the present work distinguished between ingroup self-investment and ingroup self-definition. The central prediction was that respondent race and self-investment would interact in predicting compensation support. Method: In three studies (N = 352, N = 476, & N = 562), U.S. residents who were 18 or older and either Black or White completed an online survey in which they completed a self-report measure of racial identification, as well as reporting their opinion of paying college athletes. Results: The results supported the prediction, demonstrating that Black respondents' support was higher than that for Whites, but this was especially the case at high levels of self-investment. The third study suggests that these effects were driven by respondents who believed that Black athletes made up a larger percentage of the pool of likely beneficiaries of compensation. Ingroup self-definition played no role as a moderator. Conclusions: Broadly speaking, it may be that, for policies whose likely beneficiaries are disproportionately Black, stronger racial self-investment serves to widen racial divides in support. Public Significance StatementAn ongoing controversy surrounds proposals to pay college athletes, with proponents arguing that failing to do so wrongly exploits the labor of a disproportionately Black class of athletes. Opinions typically divide by race, with Black Americans more supportive than White. The present data support the conclusion that one likely contributor to such opinion divides is a specific aspect of racial ingroup identification-Black Americans' self-investment in their race. The data also demonstrate the value of acknowledging the multidimensional nature of ingroup identification.