UC Irvine researchers told each subject that health care was created by either Clinton or Obama to gauge reaction.

In a four-part study that began before the presidential election last November, researchers found that people’s attitudes toward blacks played a role in how they viewed the president and the day’s most divisive social issue: health care.

University researchers measured 285 people’s implicit prejudice, or their emotional associations with a particular group or members of a group. The study involved 236 European Americans, 43 Asian Americans and six Latinos. Females were the majority of participants, with 194 participating. Researchers targeted non-blacks for the study, Knowles said.

The study found that 65% of people with implicit prejudices toward blacks supported a health-care platform when they were told it was proposed by President Clinton. When the same group was told the plan was presented by Obama, only 41% of people with prejudices supported it, the study found.

The way the implicit prejudices were measured was also interesting. The researchers used knee-jerk reaction times to word combinations that included “white” and “black” and “war” and “peace” and names like “Chip” and Tyrone.”

Eric Knowles, one of the study’s researchers, said, “If you thought that electing a black president was going to clean the slate, it’s not.”

Read more about the study here.