Hypothesis 4 states that participants randomly assigned to the Backdoor Vignette will be significantly more likely than those assigned to the Race-as-Social-Construction Vignette or the no-vignette control condition to endorse beliefs that racial groups are essentially different, but they will not differ significantly from those assigned to the Race-as-Genetic-Reality Vignette. Results shown in Figure 2 support this hypothesis. Controlling for age, educational attainment, gender, race (non-Hispanic white versus other), and implicit racism, mean belief in essential racial differences varied significantly among the four vignette conditions (p < .01). More specifically, comparing the Backdoor Vignette with the other three experimental conditions, we see that mean level of belief in essential racial differences was nearly identical (and not significantly different) for participants assigned to the Backdoor Vignette (2.32 on a four-point scale) and the Race-as-Genetic-Reality Vignette (2.33). Belief in essential racial differences was substantially lower among participants assigned to the Race-as-Social-Construction Vignette (2.09; differs from the Backdoor Vignette at p < .01) and to a lesser degree among the no-vignette control condition (2.16; differs from the Backdoor Vignette at p < .05).
