Information About a Racial Demographic Shift May Influence Tolerance for Outgroup Contact
Abstract
When exposed to information about a demographic shift towards a non-White majority in America, White individuals tend to prefer interactions and settings within their own ethnic group over minority ethnic groups. This behavior may suggest that future inter-racial dynamics in the U.S. could be characterized by resistance from White individuals. To understand how other racial groups respond to information about a racial demographic shift, I collected data on three measures of outgroup tolerance from a multiracial sample of students from San Jose State University’s participant database after exposing them to information about a racial demographic shift driven by a Hispanic population surge. A factorial MANOVA analysis on a sample of 204 students evaluated the impact of condition and participant Hispanic or Latine identification on all three measures of tolerance for outgroup contact. There was a statistically significant difference in condition on the combined tolerance for outgroup contact measure. However, these differences only held for the value of outgroup contact, and there was no statistically significant difference in Hispanic/Latine identification on the combined tolerance for outgroup contact measure. This work suggests that exposure to information about a racial demographic shift driven by Hispanic individuals may influence how people value outgroup contact, regardless of whether participants identify as Hispanic/Latine.
