INTERRACIAL CONTACT AND BLACK RACIAL-ATTITUDES - THE CONTACT HYPOTHESIS AND SELECTIVITY BIAS

One of the most serious criticisms of research on the contact hypothes is is the contention that selection bias operates to promote interacti on between whites and blacks who ave already relatively unprejudiced t oward one another. Accordingly, attempts to infer the effect of interr acial contact on racial attitudes must recognize and correct for this potential source of bias. Endogenous switching regression models are u sed to estimate the effect of dose interracial friendship on selected racial attitude variables while accounting for possible selectivity bi as. Each model implies a distinct assumption about the process generat ing interracial contact and racial attitudes. Using data from the Nati onal Survey of Black Americans, we find no evidence of sample selectio n bias in estimating the effect of close interracial contact on black racial attitudes. Therefore, we cannot reject the conventional models used in research on the contact hypothesis that treat interracial cont act as an exogenous variable affecting racial attitudes. However, our results show the usefulness of a switching regressions approach to rev eal the contingent nature of the contact hypothesis.