Prejudice reduction or self‐selection? A test of the contact hypothesis

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Abstract
In this study of interracial contact's impact on Whites’ attitudes toward Blacks, an inference drawn from contact theory is explicitly addressed: that contact actually reduces prejudice, independent of any tendency for favorable racial attitudes to promote contact. Results show that contact is related both to reduced social distance and to reduced stereotypes. Results also show that diffuse prejudice toward other minorities, a proxy implying the tendency to avoid contact, is unable to explain contact's association with reduced anti‐Black prejudice, provided that contact is varied and not restricted to an isolated circumstance. These findings imply that, although prejudiced people tend to avoid interracial contact more than unprejudiced people do, contact itself has an independent tendency to reduce prejudice.