Sumner held that felt superiority makes intergroup hostility an inevitable outcome of contact

Evidence

Nineteenthcentury thinking, dominated by Social Darwinism, was quite pessimistic. William Graham Sumner (1906) held that intergroup contact almost inevitably led to conflict. This followed from his famous contention that hostility toward outgroups is a reciprocal function of an ingroup’s sense of superiority. Because Sumner also believed that most groups felt themselves to be superior, his theory viewed intergroup hostility and conflict to be natural and inevitable outcomes of contact. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1655 (#expands, via linked claim)

A potential participant selection bias could limit the interpretation of many studies of intergroup contact (Pettigrew, 1998). Instead of optimal contact reducing prejudice, the opposite causal sequence could be at work. Prejudiced people may avoid, and tolerant people may seek, contact with outgroups. … Statistical methods borrowed from econometrics allow researchers to compare roughly the reciprocal paths (contact lowers prejudice vs. prejudice decreases contact) with cross-sectional data. As shown directly in other research (e.g., Herek & Capitanio, 1996), these methods reveal that prejudiced people do indeed avoid intergroup contact. But the path from contact to reduced prejudice is generally much stronger (Butler & Wilson, 1978; Pettigrew, 1997; Powers & Ellison, 1995; Van Dick et al., 2004). Longitudinal studies also have revealed that optimal contact reduces prejudice over time (e.g., Eller & Abrams, 2003, 2004; Levin, van Laar, & Sidanius, 2003), even when researchers have eliminated the possibility of participant selection (e.g., Sherif, 1966). Thus, various methods suggest that, although both sequences operate, the more important effect is that of intergroup contact reducing prejudice. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Linda R. Tropp, A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup…, 37 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Sumner saw outgroup hostility as a natural product of ingroup superiority; Superficial intergroup contact can actually worsen rather than reduce prejudice — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 1795; Intergroup contact reduces prejudice more strongly than prejudice drives avoidance of contact — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Linda R. Tropp, A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup…, 37 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Pre-contact theorizing viewed intergroup hostility as a natural outcome of contact #expands (0.92) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1655
• Intergroup contact reduces prejudice more strongly than prejudice drives avoidance of contact #complicates (0.82) — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Linda R. Tropp, A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup…, 37