Miserly Republicans, Unprincipled Democrats?

I recently came across a fascinating study done by Shanto Iyengar,Professor of Communication and director of the Political Communication Lab at Stanford University. It talks about how Republicans and Democrats donate. This data was collected through an online study and the exact methodology was not shared in the article published in Washington Post. What has been disclosed about the methodology is the following:
"To test the effects of race, participants in the study were asked to read a news article about Katrina victims. Some read a story featuring a white person. Some read identical stories -- except the victim was black, Asian or Hispanic. Then they were asked how much assistance they think the government should give to help hurricane victims. Approximately 2,300 people participated in the study."

It would be interesting to dive into the real numbers and see if there is some statistical play going on here.

So following are the key findings of the study:

1) Republicans consistently gave less aid, and gave over a shorter period of time, to victims regardless of race.

2) Democrats and independents were far more generous; on average, they gave Katrina victims on average more than $1,500 a month, compared with $1,200 for Republicans, and for 13 months instead of nine. But for Democrats, race mattered -- and in a disturbing way. Overall, Democrats were willing to give whites about $1,500 more than they chose to give to a black or other minority.

I consider myself a centrist with firmly Republican( like Fiscal policy) on some issues and Democrat( on climate change) on others. And I really haven't encountered the race question till now so it would be interesting to hear point of views and specific insights someone might want to share.