NETWORKS & PREJUDICE

Not only Whom you Know but also How you Know them Matters: How the Structure of Social Networks affects Racial Prejudice

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'This project will investigate how structural features of a person’s social network affect the reduction of interethnic prejudice. Examples of such structural features are whether one’s friends know one another and whether friends from one’s own racial group spend time in the same social settings as the friends from other groups. The work builds on recent insights in social psychology on the impact of interethnic friendships on prejudice. Under the supervision of experts at Stanford and Utrecht University, the fellow will be among the first to apply state-of-the-art techniques from sociological network analysis to the psychological study of intergroup contact and prejudice. Moreover, close collaboration with one of the world's leading experts in survey methodology (Prof Krosnick) will enable the fellow to develop better instruments to measure social networks in online surveys and advance his abilities to determine the quality of survey indicators. This newly gained knowledge will be transferred to the returning host institute through workshops and a new data collection in collaboration with local PhD students. One of Europe’s leading experts on migration and ethnic relations (Prof Verkuyten) will supervise and support the fellow, and ensure that the new insights in the role of networks are made available to other European researchers. This project addresses two core goals of the FP7 program in socio-economic science and humanities through its focus on (1) cultural diversity as a consequence of migration and (2) how this relates to discrimination in terms of interethnic prejudice. Because of the high relevance of this topic for the public and for ethnically heterogeneous schools in particular, media releases as well as workshops with teachers are planned to disseminate the findings. The training in scientific and soft skills proposed in this project will put the fellow in an excellent position to become an independent researcher and establish his own research group.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

EU-funded research is exploring how the structure of a person's social network impacts interethnic prejudice. Project outcomes contribute to the literature on intergroup contact and racial or interethnic prejudice.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The NETWORKS & PREJUDICE project applies the latest techniques from sociological network analysis to study intergroup contact and prejudice. Its particular focus is on cultural diversity as a consequence of migration, and how this relates to discrimination in terms of interethnic prejudice.

Three goals have been defined, and will be achieved through work on four initial tasks. The first goal involves studying how structural features of networks influence the impact of contact on prejudice. The second goal is to advance knowledge on whether networks shape the causal relation between contact and prejudice. The third goal focuses on whether the impact of indirect contact with people from other ethnic or racial groups on prejudice depends on the structure of the social network within which the contact takes place.

Task 1 was dedicated to training in multi-trait multi-method structural equation models. Research in this area highlights that the best measure of racial prejudice should comprise multiple indicators. In Task 2, NETWORKS & PREJUDICE analysed ego-centred network data. Findings indicate that the structure of the social network in which intergroup contact takes place does moderate the effect of contact on prejudice.

For Task 3, the project developed and applied more complex stochastic actor-based models for longitudinal social network analyses. Results suggest that prejudiced individuals have fewer contacts with members of other groups because the network structure offers fewer opportunities, and not because of their negative attitudes.

Through work on Task 4, researchers developed a new measurement tool for ego-centred networks in online surveys. Preliminary results show promise for its application.

Project work offers an improved approach to measuring prejudice and enhance the quality of data to be collected in future research. Results from each of the four tasks have been presented at conferences and through manuscripts, either already published or under review at high-impact journals.

Work to date sets the basis for a fifth and final task, to be undertaken in the second project phase. The results are slated to enhance our understanding of the effect of social network structures, and facilitate more targeted policy recommendations for reducing prejudice and fostering ethnic integration in Europe.