Residential and Personal Social Distance toward Negroes and Non-Negroes

Univer~iry of Atissouri Social distance as used by Bogardus (1925) would be expected to vary with a number of conditions: the of the attitude, the characteristics of the subject of the attitude, and the circumstances under which the attitude is measured This article, part of a larger study,l examines a fourth condition, namely, area of contact, residential as against personal. Specifically, our concern is with a clear and consistent relationship that was found between (a) the object of the distance, Negro, white Protestant, white Catholic, and Jew, and (b) the areal of contact with the object, residential and personal. Thirteen different smples were used, selecred to fulfill the purpose of the larger study, the sample sizes ranging from 21 to 90. The samples differed in a wide variety of characteristics: education, age, sex, religion, and minority group membership. In order to relate attitudes toward Negroes, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews to areas of contact (residential and personal), a modification of the Bogardus Social Distance scale was used (Westie, 1953). To measure residential social distance, Ss were asked to check along a 5-point scale their degree of agreement with the following items: having the live in the same apartment, same street, same neighborhood, and same end of town. To measure personal social distance, the same format was used, the items being: having the as close personal friend, as dinner guest, as friend often visited, and as someone to say hello to. This paper reports a comparison of the relative social distance in the residential area as against the personal area across each of the above four groups and not, as was the case of the larger study, a comparison of the social distance of the four groups with each other in the two areas.* The mean score for each sample was computed for each of the areas of contact, residential and personal social distance. The results were uniform in that two statements were true. (1) All 13 samples preferred residential over personal contact when the objects were the three non-Negro groups

Apartment · Geography · Object (grammar · Residence · Scale (ratio · Social distance · Sociology · White (mutation · Critical Race Theory in Education · Demography · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Law · Psychology · School Choice and Performance · Social Psychology

• Comparative psychological studies of Negroes and Whites in the United States

  Ralph Mason Dreger, Kent S Miller•Psychological Bulletin•1968

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• A Technique for the Measurement of Race Attitudes

  Frank R Westie•American Sociological Review•1953

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