PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN Towles-Schwen, Fazio / ORIGINS OF RACIAL ATTITUDES On the Origins of Racial Attitudes: Correlates of Childhood Experiences

This study explored the developmental correlates of undergraduates’ current racial attitudes and two factors involved in motivation to control prejudiced reactions—concern with acting prejudiced and restraint to avoid dispute. A questionnaire assessed the frequency and nature of participants’ childhood experiences with Blacks as well as perceptions of their parents’ racial attitudes. Results suggest that automatically activated attitudes may be continually updated, whereas factors involved in motivation to control prejudiced reactions remain related in adulthood to earlier childhood experiences. Positive attitudes were associated only with positive interactions when they were recent (high school), whereas participants’ reports of greater concern were associated with more positive interactions at all school levels and with perceptions that their parents were unprejudiced. Greater restraint was associated with delayed and infrequent contact, more negative interactions during middle school, and more parental prejudice.