Mixed neighborhoods reduce prejudice only indirectly, through intergroup friendship

Evidence

Figure 1 compares the paths between intergroup friends and affective prejudice. Note that living in an intergroup neighborhood makes it more likely that a European will have an outgroup friend (+.356). There is no direct relationship, however, between mixed neighborhoods and affective prejudice. This allows a test of the paths between friendship and affective prejudice (Bollen 1989, Heist 1975). As in other research (Herek & Capitanio 1996), the prejudiced avoid intergroup contact (−.137). But the path from friendship to reduced affective prejudice is significantly stronger (−.210), a finding consistent with that of Powers & Ellison (1995). In short, like prejudice, contact involves both cognition and affect. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 54

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The mediation structure — neighborhoods produce friends, friends produce reduced prejudice, but neighborhoods alone do nothing — reframes contact theory as a chain rather than a dose response.
• XREF: Rhymes with critiques of ‘diversity exposure’ policies that assume proximity alone changes attitudes.