The Ties That Bind and Those That Don't: Toward Reconciling Group Threat and Contact Theories of Prejudice

Does interracial/interethnic propinquity breed hostility or harmony? Group threat and contact theories generally answer hostility and harmony, respectively. I propose that a historically and culturally rooted racial/ethnic hierarchy differentially shapes whites' present-day threat of, contact with, and ultimately, prejudice towards blacks, Hispanics and Asians. Because Hispanics and Asians have ascended in this hierarchy, they arouse less threat and have more comfortable interactions with whites. Results from multilevel models of 2000 General Social Survey and Census data indicate that the real presence of blacks – not Hispanics or Asians – living near whites heightens whites' prejudice. Moreover, whites who know Hispanics and Asians are less prejudiced towards them, but whites need to both know and feel close to blacks to experience reduced prejudice. Implications are discussed.