Friendship drives reduced prejudice more than prejudice reduces friendship

Evidence

And a test like that of Figure 1 showed that the path from friendship to reduced prejudice is significantly stronger than the prejudice to less friendship path. These findings challenge Rose’s (1981) assertion that intimate relationships cannot generalize to different persons and groups. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 74

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: the directionality problem in contact research — do tolerant people simply have more outgroup friends? Panel/longitudinal designs settle it.