The Effect of Unintended Interracial Contact Upon Racial Interaction and Attitude Change. Final Report.

This was a study of the influence of unintended interracial contact and characteristics of the contact situation on attitude-related action and attitude change. It was designed to determine if persons with initially negative racial attitudes would change these attitudes by an experimental experience. The research subjects were white students from border southern colleges selected from the anti-Negro half of a large pool of potential subjects. Equally prejudiced persons were selected as controls. The students were hired for part-time work, a natural situation, and discovered only after they began work that they were to have Negro co-workers. The subject was led by the task requirements of the situation and by the actions of his supervisor and co-workers to experience cooperative contact with one Negro student (a confederate) and to develop a conversational acquaintance with a second worker. At the end of the final session, the subject rated each one on various aspects of competence character and personality. Several months later, the subject responded to the same racial attitudes scale that he took before the experiment. Thus, the possible emergence of both immediate and/or lasting attitude change is assessed. (Author/LM)