Do Prejudice Concerns Undermine Intimacy in Cross-Group Interactions?
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Date
2020-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Race relations in the United States can seem like an intractable problem. Psychological research identifies one clear route to reducing prejudice and improving intergroup relations: cross-group friendship. When individuals have close friends of other races, they develop more positive attitudes towards outgroup members and become less prejudiced toward those groups. However, creating cross-group friendships can be difficult. For example, majority group members (i.e., Whites) often experience anxiety about appearing prejudiced, which ironically deteriorates the quality of their cross-group interactions. Aside from anxiety, however, little is known about the mechanisms: How in particular does the concern of appearing prejudiced affect initial friendship formation? I recruited 69 White female undergraduate students and paired them each with a Black confederate. I randomly assigned participants to a threat or control condition. The experimenter told participants that some past participants felt their partners seemed racist (threat condition) or partners did not communicate clearly, e.g., had messy handwriting (control condition). Next, participants selected questions to ask their partner. These questions varied on several dimensions including how intimate and racially-charged they were as well as how likely they would elicit negative information, competence-related information, and warmth-related information. Finally, participants filled out self-report measures assessing interracial anxiety, interest in outgroup contact, self-protectiveness, social anxiety, internal and external motivation to respond without prejudice (IMS/EMS), and authenticity. I found mixed evidence in support of our hypotheses: those in the threat condition asked marginally less intimate questions (M = 2.71, SD = 0.29) compared to those in the control condition (M = 2.82, SD = 0.26), t(67) = -1.68, p = .098, 95% CI [-0.24, 0.02]. The effect of condition on intimacy did not depend on EMS: b = -0.01, SE = 0.06, 95% CI [-0.13, 0.10], t(68)= -0.22, p = .826, ß = -0.04. Interestingly, however, I did find clear differences by condition on the selection of competence-eliciting questions t(67) = -2.57, p = .013, 95% CI [-0.26, -0.03]. Those in the threat condition were less likely to ask questions that could reveal their partner's level of competence (M = 2.44, SD = 0.21) than those in the control condition (M = 2.58, SD = 0.25). Asking less intimate and competence-eliciting questions within cross-race interactions can cause less meaningful friendships to form between these groups, thus providing less opportunity for positive attitudes to be cultivated. This lack of opportunity can continue to fuel the racial segregation seen today, making race relations more difficult to manage. Understanding intergroup interactions can empower people to develop more meaningful cross-group friendships in their everyday lives and improve race relations as a whole.
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Keywords
prejudice concerns, friendship formation, interracial interactions, intimacy