Description

Revision with unchanged content. The O. J. Simpson criminal trial was a social event that generated extensive pu-blic discourse and a search for causes. The dramatic differences of opinion be-tween Black and White Americans about the case seemed to reflect broa-der disparities in social perception, particularly perceptions of the nature of racial/ethnic group relations in American society. This project involved the testing of a theoretical model, derived from social iden-tity and intergroup attribution theory, to predict social perceptions asso-ci-ated with attitudes about the case. Black and White Americans were sur-veyed to assess their views of racial/ethnic group stratification, the im-por-tance of racial/ethnic group membership to self-identity, and perceptions of threat from the outgroup. These factors, in combination, were highly pre-dic-tive of the intensity of respondents' beliefs about O. J. Simpson's guilt or inno-cence. This work will be of interest to social psychologists, sociologists, and others interested in how ordinary people interpret controversial social events, par-ti-cu-larly those that have relevance to current social conflicts.