Background/Purpose Considerable efforts have been made in reducing racial prejudice. One of the most popular of these is the Allport's (1954) contact hypothesis. According to this perspective, bias between people is reduced when they interact with one another, particularly under certain conditions. While this framework has received strong support (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), there is a lack of work in the sport context or that compares the influence of contact across cultures. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the influence of sport-related contact on racial prejudice among White Americans and South Koreans.
Method Data were collected 204 (104 South Koreans, 100 White Americans) college students. They completed a questionnaire measuring their contact with Blacks in the sport context (adapted from Herek & Capitanio, 1996), intergroup anxiety (Binder et al., 2009), and racist attitudes toward Blacks (McConahay, 1986).
Analysis/Results A confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the factor structure of the questionnaire. Structural equation modeling, with latent variable interactions (Marsh et al., 2006) was used to examine the relationships among variables. Results indicate that the culture-by-contact interaction was significant (b = -.23, p < .01): contact was negatively related to intergroup anxiety for South Koreans, but was unrelated among White Americans. Furthermore, intergroup bias was positively associated with racism (b = .38, p < .01).
Conclusions Results show that sport-related contact effectively reduces intergroup anxiety, and ultimately racism, particularly for people not accustomed to the contact (re: South Koreans). Thus, contact in the sport context provides a powerful mechanism for transforming intergroup relations.
See more of: Research Consortium