The present research investigated whether having out-group friends serves as a buffer for feeling misunderstood in interracial interactions. Across three experience sampling studies, we found that among ethnic minorities who have few White friends or are not interacting with White friends, daily interracial interactions are associated with feeling less understood. By contrast, we found that among ethnic minorities who have more White friends or are interacting with White friends, the relationship between daily interracial interactions and feeling understood is not significant. We did not find similar results for Whites; that is, having ethnic minority friends did not play a role in the relationship between daily interracial interactions and feeling understood. Together, these studies demonstrate the beneficial effects of intergroup friendships for ethnic minorities.
ButzD. A.PlantE. A. (2006). Perceiving outgroup members as unresponsive: Implications for approach-related emotions, intentions, and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 1066-1079.
2.
CrossS. E.BaconP. L.MorrisM. L. (2000). The relational-interdependent self-construal and relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 791-808.
3.
DaviesK.TroppL. R.AronA.PettigrewT. F.WrightS. C. (2011). Cross-group friendships and intergroup attitudes: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 332-351.
4.
DixonJ.TroppL. R.DurrheimK.TredouxC. (2010). “Let them eat harmony”: Prejudice reduction strategies and attitudes of historically disadvantaged groups. Current Direction in Psychological Science, 19, 76-80.
5.
DovidioJ. F.KawakamiK.GaertnerS. L. (2002). Implicit and explicit prejudice and interracial interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 62-68.
6.
ElfenbeinH. A.AmbadyN. (2002). On the universality and cultural specificity of emotion recognition: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 203-235.
7.
GaitherS. E.SommersS. R. (2013). Living with an other-race roommate shapes Whites’ behavior in subsequent diverse settings. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 272-276.
8.
GrayH. M.MendesW. B.Denny-BrownC. (2008). An in-group advantage in detecting intergroup anxiety. Psychological Science, 19, 1233-1237.
9.
HartupW. W.StevensN. (1997). Friendships and adaptations in the life course. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 355-370.
10.
LaurenceauJ.-P.Feldman-BarrettL.RovineM. J. (2005). The interpersonal process model of intimacy in marriage: A daily-diary and multilevel modeling approach. Journal of Family Psychology, 19, 314-323.
11.
LunJ.KesebirS.OishiS. (2008). On feeling understood and feeling well: The role of interdependence. Journal of Research on Personality, 42, 1623-1628.
12.
MarkN. P.HarrisD. R. (2012). Roommate’s race and the racial composition of white college students’ ego networks. Social Science Research, 41, 331-342.
13.
McLaughlin-VolpeT.Mendoza-DentonR.SheltonJ. N. (2005). Cross-group friendships and the experience of minority students at predominately White institutions. In DowneyG.EcclesJ.ChatmanC. (Eds.), Navigating the future: Social identity, coping and life tasks (pp. 191-209). New York, NY: The Russell Sage Foundation.
14.
Mendoza-DentonR.DowneyG.PurdieV.DavisA.PietrzakJ. (2002). Sensitivity to status-based rejection: Implications for African American students’ college experience. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 83, 896-918.
15.
Mendoza-DentonR.Page-GouldE. (2008). Can cross-group friendships influence minority students’ well-being at historically White universities?Psychological Science, 19, 933-939.
16.
MuthenL. K.MuthenB. O. (1998-2012). Mplus user’s guide (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Authors.
17.
NewcombA. F.BagwellC. L. (1995). Children’s friendship relations: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 306-347.
18.
OishiS.KooM.AkimotoS. (2008). Culture, interpersonal perceptions, and happiness in social interactions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 307-320.
19.
OishiS.KrochikM.AkimotoS. (2010). Felt understanding as a bridge between close relationships and subjective well-being: Antecedents and consequences across individuals and cultures. Social & Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 403-416.
20.
Page-GouldE. (2012). To whom can I turn? Maintenance of positive intergroup relations in the face of intergroup conflict. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3, 462-470.
21.
Page-GouldE.Mendoza-DentonR.AlegreJ. M.SiyJ. O. (2010). Understanding the impact of cross-group friendship on interactions with novel outgroup members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 775-793.
22.
PaoliniS.HewstoneM.VociA.HarwoodJ.CairnsE. (2006). Intergroup contact and the promotion of intergroup harmony: The influence of intergroup emotions. In BrownR.CapozzaD. (Eds.), Social identities: Motivational, emotional, and cultural influences (pp. 209-238). Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
23.
PearsonA. R.WestT. V.DovidioJ. F.PowersS.BuckR.HenningR. (2008). The fragility of intergroup relations: Divergent effects of delayed audio-visual feedback in intergroup and intragroup interactions. Psychological Science, 19, 1272-1279.
24.
PettigrewT. F. (1998). Intergroup contact theory. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 65-85.
25.
ReisH. T.ShaverP. (1988). Intimacy as an interpersonal process. In DuckS. W. (Ed.), Handbook of personal relationships (pp. 367-389). New York, NY: Wiley.
26.
SaguyT.TauschN.DovidioJ. F.PrattoF. (2009). The irony of harmony: Intergroup contact can produce false expectations for equality. Psychological Science, 20, 114-121.
27.
SederJ. P.OishiS. (2009). Ethnic/racial homogeneity in college student’s Facebook friendship networks and subjective well-being. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 438-443.
28.
SeligJ. P.PreacherK. J. (2008, June). Monte Carlo method for assessing mediation: An interactive tool for creating confidence intervals for indirect effects [Computer Software]. Available from http://quantpsy.org
29.
SheltonJ. N.TrailT. E.WestT. V.BergsiekerH. B. (2010). From strangers to friends: The interpersonal process model of intimacy in developing interracial friendships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27, 71-90.
30.
ShookN.FazioR. H. (2008). Roommate relationships: A comparison of interracial and same-race living situations. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 11, 425-427.
31.
Towles-SchwenT.FazioR. H. (2006). Automatically activated racial attitudes as predictors of the success of interracial roommate relationships. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 698-705.
32.
TroppL. R. (2008). The role of trust in intergroup contact: Its significance and implications for improving relations between groups. In WagnerU.TroppL. R.FinchilescuG.TredouxC. (Eds.), Improving intergroup relations: Building on the legacy of Thomas F. Pettigrew (pp. 91-106). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
33.
TroppL. R.HawiD. R.Van LaarC.LevinS. (2012). Cross-ethnic friendships, perceived discrimination, and their effects on ethnic activism over time: A longitudinal investigation of three ethnic minority groups. British Journal of Social Psychology, 51, 257-272.
34.
TrujilloM. D.GarciaR. L.SheltonJ. N. (2014). I thought you were Japanese: Ethnic miscategorization and identity assertion. Manuscript submitted for publication.
35.
van LaarC.LevinS.SinclairS.SidaniusJ. (2005). The effect of college roommate contact on ethnic attitudes and behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 329-345.
36.
VorauerJ. D.SakamotoY. (2006). I thought we could be friends, but . . . Systematic miscommunication and defensive distancing as obstacles to cross-group friendship formation. Psychological Science, 17, 326-331.
37.
YipT.DouglassS.SheltonJ. N. (2013). Daily intragroup contact in diverse settings: Implications for Asian adolescents’ ethnic identity. Child Development, 84, 1425-1441.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
