Structuring local environments to avoid racial diversity: Anxiety drives Whites' geographical and institutional self-segregation preferences

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Abstract

The current research explores how local racial diversity affects Whites' efforts to structure their local communities to avoid incidental intergroup contact. In two experimental studies (N = 509; Studies 1a-b), we consider Whites' choices to structure a fictional, diverse city and find that Whites choose greater racial segregation around more (vs. less) self-relevant landmarks (e.g., their workplace and children's school). Specifically, the more time they expect to spend at a landmark, the more they concentrate other Whites around that landmark, thereby reducing opportunities for incidental intergroup contact. Whites also structure environments to reduce incidental intergroup contact by instituting organizational policies that disproportionately exclude non-Whites: Two large-scale archival studies (Studies 2a-b) using data from every U.S. tennis (N = 15,023) and golf (N = 10,949) facility revealed that facilities in more racially diverse communities maintain more exclusionary barriers (e.g., guest policies, monetary fees, dress codes) that shield the patrons of these historically White institutions from incidental intergroup contact. In a final experiment (N = 307; Study 3), we find that Whites' anticipated intergroup anxiety is one driver of their choices to structure environments to reduce incidental intergroup contact in more (vs. less) racially diverse communities. Our results suggest that despite increasing racial diversity, White Americans structure local environments to fuel a self-perpetuating cycle of segregation.

Introduction

Racial demographics are changing. According to national census projections, the U.S. will become a “minority White” country by 2045 (Frey, 2018). This demographic shift has important implications for race relations, which a majority of Americans believe have worsened in recent years (Horowitz, Brown, & Cox, 2019). Indeed, previous research has found that when Whites learn about or experience changing racial demographics in the U.S., they express more negative attitudes toward diversity, more strongly prefer to interact with other Whites over minorities, experience more group status threat, and display more implicit and explicit racial bias (Burrow, Stanley, Sumner, & Hill, 2014; Craig and Richeson, 2014a, Craig and Richeson, 2014b; Danbold & Huo, 2015; Fossett & Kiecolt, 1989; Knowles & Tropp, 2018; Outten, Schmitt, Miller, & Garcia, 2012; Rae, Newheiser, & Olson, 2015).

We build on this work by considering the effects of local racial diversity on Whites' efforts to structure local environments to reduce incidental intergroup contact, i.e., fleeting exposure to members of different racial groups that emerge in the context of ordinary activities. Specifically, we investigate how Whites construct and maintain barriers in their local geographical and institutional environments, which in turn reduce their chances for incidental intergroup contact. We find evidence that these choices are motivated, at least in part, by intergroup anxiety which Whites anticipate feeling in response to experiencing more (vs. less) contact with non-Whites. This highlights a troubling dilemma: In seeking to avoid sharing physical spaces and institutional access with non-Whites in the face of increasing local racial diversity, Whites may avoid crucial opportunities for incidental intergroup contact which otherwise may have debiasing effects (Binder et al., 2009; Paluck, Porat, Clark, & Green, 2021). Moreover, racial minorities may have fewer opportunities to access crucial material and social capital. Our results combine to suggest that by engaging in practices and supporting policies that reduce even incidental forms of intergroup contact, Whites fuel a self-perpetuating cycle of segregation and bias. We begin by situating the current manuscript in the broader historical context before subsequently unpacking each element of our proposed model.

Section snippets

A brief history of Whites' efforts to racially self-segregate

Du Bois, 1939, Du Bois, 2017 seminal examination of the post-Civil War South emphasized the role of Whiteness as “a sort of public and psychological wage” distinct from one's economic wage, the benefits of which include being “admitted freely with all classes of [W]hite people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools.”1

Structuring environments to reduce incidental intergroup contact

For a variety of reasons, not all Whites live in communities that are geographically isolated from non-Whites, particularly as local diversity increases. When some amount of racial integration is unavoidable, Whites may avoid intergroup contact in other ways: In particular, we focus on practices that promote institutional exclusion and segregation. For example, scholars have documented discriminatory practices and outcomes in labor markets (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004), the sharing economy (

Intergroup anxiety is one driver of whites' structural preferences

Why might Whites structure environments to reduce opportunities for incidental intergroup contact? Different drivers have been identified across the social sciences, including realistic group competition (e.g., Bobo, 1983; Putnam, 2007), symbolic (e.g., Stephan et al., 2002) and status threats (e.g., Craig and Richeson, 2014a, Craig and Richeson, 2014b), racial animus (Dovidio, Gaertner, Kawakami, & Hodson, 2002; Vorauer, Hunter, Main, & Roy, 2000), supremacy beliefs and social dominance (e.g.,

Whites' structural preferences result in less incidental intergroup contact

Our predictions are particularly relevant given the increasing numbers of non-Whites in American society. According to intergroup contact theory, “as actual diversity in meaningful local environments increases, so too should positive contact experiences,” which in turn can have debiasing effects (Craig, Rucker, & Richeson, 2018, pg. 190). For instance, a meta-analysis of studies revealed a negative relationship between intergroup contact and prejudice (Pearson's r = −0.21; Pettigrew & Tropp,

Overview of studies

We test our predictions across five studies using a mix of experimental, archival, and survey data. In Studies 1a and 1b (pre-registered), we demonstrate that even in highly racially diverse local environments, Whites exhibit a preference to racially self-segregate when making decisions about the structure of a city. In Studies 2a and 2b, we explore Whites' decisions to institute organizational policies that disproportionately exclude non-Whites, thereby reducing opportunities for incidental

Study 1a: Whites prefer personally relevant spaces be occupied by other Whites

In Study 1a, we developed a novel paradigm to test our first hypothesis by asking White participants to imagine living in a new city and assessing the extent to which they indicated a preference for having other Whites live geographically closer to the areas of the city in which they indicated they would spend more (vs. less) time. This paradigm allowed us to explore Whites' preferences for structuring a racially diverse space, in a controlled experimental setting, thus complementing the

Study 1b: experimental evidence of Whites' preference to self-segregate

Study 1b was a pre-registered experiment (our pre-registration document is available here: https://aspredicted.org/blind.php?x=6xi2r6) in which we tested our intergroup avoidance hypothesis (H1) using a similar paradigm to the one used in Study 1a. We asked White participants to imagine living in a new city and assessed their preferred geographical distribution of residents by race based on their knowledge (or lack of knowledge) of where they lived in the hypothetical city.

Studies 2a and 2b: evidence of exclusionary policies within elite White institutions in diverse communities

In Studies 2a-b, we examine whether institutions that have been historically controlled by White people maintain exclusionary barriers that function to exclude members of racial outgroups. We tested this hypothesis in the context of every U.S. tennis and golf facility.

Both tennis and golf are predominantly White institutions that have been plagued by long histories of racism (Newman, 2018; Sandomir, 2008).10

Study 3: Whites' preference to structure their environment to reduce incidental intergroup contact is driven by intergroup anxiety

Study 3 was a pre-registered experiment (our pre-registration document is available here: https://aspredicted.org/blind.php?x=de57ta) that tested intergroup anxiety as one potential mechanism driving the effect of diversity on Whites' preference to structure their environments to reduce incidental intergroup contact (Hypothesis 3). Prior to running the current version of this study, we ran a pilot experiment using a similar paradigm, which provides converging evidence in support of our

General discussion

Across five studies using a mix of experimental, archival, and survey methods, we provide evidence of a cycle of intergroup avoidance that is reflected in Whites' efforts to structure their local environments in ways that reduce incidental intergroup contact: Whites experience more intergroup anxiety in the face of local racial diversity, and as such, work to segregate themselves geographically and institutionally from racial outgroup members. This, in turn, reduces the likelihood of incidental

Theoretical contributions

The current work aims to make three main contributions. First, our findings connect Whites' psychological reactions to local racial diversity to structural outcomes (Coleman, 1994), revealing a self-perpetuating cycle of intergroup avoidance. Specifically, Whites who are exposed to greater local racial diversity, and the associated opportunities for incidental intergroup contact, are actually more likely to construct environments that avoid such contact. As a result, Whites contribute to

Practical implications

From a societal standpoint, our findings highlight the need for more efforts to increase incidental intergroup contact in parallel with efforts to increase racial diversity. In particular, physical environments have the power to shape everyday decisions and interactions (Bonam et al., 2017; Klotz, Pickering, Schmidt, & Weber, 2019). Thus, policies related to physical space planning, in addition to housing and public transportation, may be important levers that can be used to counter barriers to

Limitations and future directions

We acknowledge several limitations of the current research. In particular, several of our studies are correlational, describing reality without establishing causality. For instance, since Studies 2a and 2b represent cross-sectional snapshots of data from every golf and tennis facility in the U.S., we are unable to gauge when the restrictive policies we documented were actually implemented. It is possible that some of the policies were implemented when local racial diversity was either higher or

Conclusion

As the U.S. continues to become more racially diverse, one might expect a subsequent increase in incidental intergroup contact, potentially improving intergroup relations. Instead, we find that local racial diversity prompts Whites to structure their communities in ways that diminish incidental intergroup contact, despite the potential of such contact to instead alleviate Whites' intergroup anxiety. This perspective highlights the troubling, self-perpetuating cycle of Whites' intergroup

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