That’s Racist!: Political Correctness Predicts Accusations of Racism in Ambiguous Situations

Abstract The present research reports three studies investigating the possibility that Political Correctness (PC) is associated with the tendency to claim racism in ambiguous interactions involving Black and White individuals, despite plausible alternative explanations. In Study 1, PC was significantly related to claiming racism in ambiguous scenarios. In Study 2, these results were replicated with open-ended and prompted scenarios. In Study 3, exposure to PC did not impact claims of racism, indicating the stability of trait PC. In all three studies, White Guilt mediated the relationship between PC and claiming racism, among Whites. Additionally, confidence in the accuracy of open-ended responses (Study 2) was much higher in PC participants, indicating heuristic thinking. Finally, PC predicted claiming racism beyond many related variables.