THE RELATIONSHIP OF ETHNIC IDENTITY, PERCEIVED DISCRIMINATION, AND OUTGROUP CONTACT TO RACIAL ATTITUDES TOWARD WHITE PEOPLE IN AFRICAN AMERCAN COLLEGE STUDENTS

Abstract

Many cities in the United States are currently in or have recently come out of situations where racial tensions are running dangerously high and are spilling out into the streets in the forms of violence and rioting. Due the history of race relations between White/Caucasian and Black/African American people in the United States, most research in the area of racial attitudes has focused predominantly how the majority group feels about the minority group. Interestingly, fewer researchers have looked at how the minority group feels about the majority group. This study examined the relations among experiences with racial discrimination, ethnic identity, interracial contact, self-esteem, and racial attitudes. A sample of Black/African American college students (N = 116) completed questionnaires to measure perceived racial discrimination, ethnic identity, quantity and quality of interracial contact, self-esteem, and racial attitudes. The purpose of this study was to increase our knowledge and understanding of the attitudes of minority group members and to inform our understanding of race relations in the United States. The primary research question was the relation of all other variables to racial attitudes, and this question was explored with a linear regression analysis predicting scores on the racial attitudes measure with five predictor variables (self-esteem, quantity of interracial contact, quality of interracial contact, perceived discrimination, and ethnic identity).