Interracial friendship and the trajectory of prominority attitudes: Assessing intergroup contact theory

We analyze the trajectory of racial attitude change among White university students, over a 4-year time period, representing an advancement over previous studies’ use of longitudinal designs alone to test the causal ordering and nature of the relationship between contact and attitudes. Adding to the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Group processes & intergroup relations 2015-03, Vol.18 (2), p.225-240
Main Authors: Northcutt Bohmert, Miriam, DeMaris, Alfred
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Affirmative action
Attitude change
Attitudes
Correlation analysis
Friendship
Interethnic relations
Interracial relationships
Race relations
Social change
Social psychology
Studies
Universities
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Summary:We analyze the trajectory of racial attitude change among White university students, over a 4-year time period, representing an advancement over previous studies’ use of longitudinal designs alone to test the causal ordering and nature of the relationship between contact and attitudes. Adding to the literature on intergroup friendships, we examined the impact of two types of intergroup contact (interracial friendships and neighborhood racial context) on two types of racial attitudes: attitudes supportive of affirmative action and feelings of commonality with minorities. Overall, we find that a greater number of interracial friendships is associated with more positive racial attitudes. Women and those with more interracial friendships experience a faster rate of increase in their endorsement of affirmative action policies. Individuals growing up in more racially homogeneous neighborhoods expressed less support for affirmative action and politically conservative students had lower support for both affirmative action and feelings of commonality.
ISSN:1368-4302
1461-7188
DOI:10.1177/1368430214550342