Structural Constraints on Interpersonal Relations: A Test of Blau's Macrosociological Theory

Blau's macrostructural theory focuses on explanation of rates of social contacts between people with different social characteristics. The theory is composed of two analytically distinct categories of social structure. One category is distributional; that is, it refers to properties that emerger from size distributions of social characteristics. The other is a social network approach to social interactions. This article uses Fischer's data collected from 1,050 respondents living in 50 northern California localities to examine hypotheses derived from Blau's theory. The findings suggest that social structure constrains choice: ethnic and religious heterogeneity encourage interethnic and interreligious social interactions despite the negative effects of in-group preferences on such interactions.