Interracial Perceptions Among High School Students

Effects of School Organizational Structure on Interracial Friendships in Middle Schools

“…Those white students who had even "some" black friends were Significantly more positive in their attitudes toward blacks than were those whites who reported having "almost no" black friends. The finding that black students, in general, perceived whites more positively than whites perceived blacks is consistent with previous research (patchen , Hofmann , & Davidson , 1976 ;Simpson & Yinger, 1972). It appears as though lower-status minority students view higher-status majority students as having qualities to which they aspire, whereas majority students evaluate minority students as behaving in ways that "are inconsistent with prevailing no rms and social etiquette" (Patchen et al ., 1976 , p. 353).…”

Trust And Distrust: New Relationships and Realities

“…Similarly, low positive affectivity (e.g., sleepy, dull, drowsy, and sluggish) was not synonymous with high negative affectivity (e.g., distressed, scornful, hostile, fearful, nervous, and jittery). Others have similar findings demonstrating the separability of positive-valent and negative-valent constructs for optimism/pessimism (Stallings, Dunham, Gatz, & Bengtson, 1997), interracial attitudes (Katz & Hass, 1988;Katz, Wackenhut, & Hass, 1986;Patchen, Hofman, & Davidson, 1976), and attitudes toward blood and organ donation (Cacioppo & Gardner, 1993).…”

Liking is not the opposite of disliking: The functional separability of positive and negative attitudes toward minority groups.

“…Patchen et al, (1976) found that a majority of White high school students rated African American students as having each of the nine positive traits they assessed. Most striking, however, is that African American high school students in that study actually identified positive attitudes that White students held toward their group (e.g., that African Americans are friendly, helpful).…”