The Impact of Negro Neighbors on White Home Owners

The purpose of this study was to test the hypotlhesis that equal-status residential contact between Negroes and whlites in a predominanitly white middleto upper-middle-class neighborhiood would lead to a reduction of prejudice. The results suggest that equal-status contact in one area (in this case residential) does lead to a reduction of prejudice in that area (Negroes were more accepted as neighbors), but this change does not necessarily generalize to other areas of interpersolnal contact. However, whein residenitial contact leads to more intimiiate types of interactions, a more extensive reduction in prejudice may follow. W lC T hat happens wrlheln a Negro family buys a holmie in a midldleto uppermiddle-class suburban area whiclh up to that time has lhad lno Neg-o residents ? This is a question to wlhiclh wve a(lklressecl ourselves in tr-vig to evaluate the clhangigll, residential patterns takiing place in Stockton, California, a community of approximately 100,000 persons, eight perceilt of wlliclh, accordinig to the 1960 cenisus, is made up of Negroes. It has been the traclitioii in Stockton for niany years that the nortlhwest area of Stockton not be open to Negro occupancy. That this tradition has co11tinued was borne out by the 1960 census wlhich shlowe(l that 44 percent of the white population and onily one-telnth of one percent of the Negro population lived in this area. In the spring of 1963, we interviewed 16 of the 20 Negro families living in this area and learne(I of their previous attempts and failures to move to this northlvest area, the obstacles they met, how they finally overcame them, and their perceptions of the neighbors' reactions to themselves. Their own observations inclicatecl that, over a period of time, their neighbors did respond more favorably. At this point we decided to design a study to validate their perceptions. More specifically we were interested in finding out wlhether attitudes of whites toward Negroes had changed as a result of living in close proximity to a Negro family. It is most difficult in a field study of this type to measure change in attitudes directly since it is hardly possible to measure the attitudes of the wlhite neighbors before there is any suggestion that a Negro famiily woulld buy a house in the imimediate vicinity. Thus it was necessary to obtain a control group, white famiilies living somiie distance away (three or four 1)locks) from a Negro family and having the same general socioeconomic background as the experimllental g-roup (the immediate neighbors of Negro fanmiles). Given these conditions, we are assuming that a significant clifference in attitudes between the experimental and control groups is the result of the former having had the experience of living close to Negro families. Otlher stuclies of a similar kind have been carried out, ancl they have been reviewed by Allport, and by Wilner, Walkley, ancl Cook.1 However, most of these studies involved white residents in low-cost rental apartment housing nanaged by public agencies.2 The essential findincg of these investigators was that when Negroes and whites live in close proximity and are of equal socioeconomic status the number 1 G. W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1954); D. M. Wilner, Rosabelle P. Walkley, and S. W. Cook, H1lattua Relations in Interracial HIousiniyg-A Stuidy of the Contact Hypothesis (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1955). 2 M. Deutsch and Mary E. Collins, Interracial Housing: A Psychological Evalutatio-n of a Social Experi'Onent (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1951); R. K. Merton, Patricia S. West, and Marie Jahoda, Social Facts antd Social Fictions: The Dynamnics of Race Relationts int Hilltown (New York: Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research, June 1949); and Wilner et al., op. cit. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.29 on Tue, 12 Apr 2016 09:44:45 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms