The contact hypothesis posits that contact between members of majority and minority groups (under certain conditions) can reduce prejudice towards the minority group. In a new test of this hypothesis, this article by David Schindler (Tilburg University) and Mark Westcott (Munich Graduate School of Economics), published in the journal Review of Economic Studies (ungated earlier version here), uses data on African American GIs in Britain. They introduce their paper as:
In this paper, we show that the temporary presence of African American G.I.s... in the UK during World War II persistently reduced anti-minority prejudice amongst the British population. As the base of the US military’s European operation, the UK played host to over one and a half million US troops during World War II. Around 150,000 of these troops were black, serving in segregated units with non-combat support duties such as transport and supply... Many Britons thereby saw and interacted with non-whites for the very first time. Despite pervasive racist attitudes before the war, we show evidence from surveys that these interactions were positive experiences for both the local population and for black G.I.s.
More specifically, they derive a measure of which local areas in England and Wales had military bases where African American support units were stationed. They focus on support units because:
As in previous wars, black soldiers served in racially segregated units, normally under command of white officers. With few exceptions, black troops were limited to non-combat “labour” or “service” roles, most often supply and quartermaster services, transport, food preparation, and sanitation...
Schindler and Westcott then compare areas in England and Wales that were more, or less, exposed to African American troops (controlling for the presence of other support troops) during World War II. They make this comparison in terms of a number of measures that are plausibly associated with racial bias in more recent times, including: (1) membership of the far-right BNP political party (using a membership list published online in 2008); (2) local election results (in terms of the share of votes for the BNP in elections from 2006-2012; or the share of votes for the Conservative Party from 1973-2012); (3) online data from Implicit Attitudes Tests taken by UK residents between 2004 and 2013; and (4) online survey data (from the same source as the IAT data) on 'warmth of feelings' towards African Americans. They find that:
...individuals in areas of the UK where more black troops were posted are more tolerant towards minorities 60 years after the last troops left. First, we show that such areas contain fewer members of the British National Party (BNP), a far-right political party with racist policy positions. Next, we demonstrate that voters in affected areas were less likely to vote Conservative in local elections during times when far-right parties were not widely fielding candidates (until the early 2000s). This effect disappears as the BNP emerged as the strongest far-right party and BNP candidates subsequently received fewer votes in locations where black G.I.s were posted. Finally, we show that there is less implicit anti-black bias in these areas, as measured by Implicit Association Test (IAT) scores, and that those living in locations where black G.I.s were posted report warmer feelings towards black people.
The size of the effects are small. Schindler and Westcott provide some additional analyses where they mathematically manipulate their results to account for the number of generations that have passed between World War II and the present day, and the proportion of the population that might have been exposed to African American GIs. Those adjustments rely on some heroic assumptions, and I don't find them compelling. However, in terms of the contact hypothesis, their analysis separated into rural and urban areas is potentially more important, where they find that:
...the effect of black troops on BNP membership is about twice as large in rural areas as in urban areas. In fact, the effect in urban areas is not statistically significant at any conventional level, despite a larger sample size.
That's consistent with the contact hypothesis because urban areas in England and Wales already had minority populations prior to World War II, so exposure to African American GIs is likely to have a much smaller (in this case, effectively zero) impact. Schindler and Westcott only provide this disaggregated analysis for the BNP membership data - in the other analyses, they simply limit their results to the rural population. Perhaps we are to take from that that the results only hold for rural populations overall.
At the start of this post, I noted that the contact hypothesis requires certain conditions. Schindler and Westcott come back to those conditions in their conclusion:
Taken as a whole, our results provide support for the “contact hypothesis” (Allport, 1954), which postulates that contact between groups can reduce animosity towards the minority group, and show that such effects can persist in geographies across time.
It is interesting to note that the contact which we describe meets many of the conditions that Allport postulated were necessary for intergroup contact to lead to improved relations: equal status, common goals, intergroup cooperation, and personal interaction. Black G.I.s were in the UK for a relatively short period of time, to support the war effort, and did not compete for jobs or public goods with the local population.
Of course, those conditions are not always met. For instance, in many Western countries in recent times, some migrant groups or refugee groups would struggle to meet any of the four conditions. That suggests a role for government or non-government organisations to improve the conditions of contact between these groups and the majority population.
[HT: Marginal Revolution, last year]
No comments:
Post a Comment