新作坊 Humanity Innovation and Social Practice

Ethnic Conflict and the Contact Hypothesis.

摘要：

Ethnic conflict has complex causes and diverse effects, ranging from petty slights to murderous violence. Some light can be thrown on its causes by focusing on the two correlations commonly found in situations of ethnic contact and conflict. On the one hand, there is the easily observed negative correlation that supports the familiar "contact hypothesis": the more personal contact, the less conflict (prejudice, discrimination, hostility, etc.). On the other hand, there is the positive correlation suggested by many historical and sociological studies of contact situations. As a leading authority on intergroup attitudes has recently observed, "The world is experiencing two major intergroup trends-massive migration and increased group conflict" (Pettigrew, 1998b, 77). In other words, more contact and more conflict. But how is this possible? How can higher levels of contact be associated with both increases and decreases in the indicators of ethnic antagonism? The theory associated with the contact hypothesis--"contact theory"--provides a possible answer to this question, but one that obscures more than it illuminates and that has more political than scientific appeal. First, however, the basic problem of two correlations is clarified by reviewing some findings from an early study of the contact hypothesis.