Citation

Stjohn C, Healdmoore T. Soc. Sci. Res. 1995; 24(3): 262-280.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1006/ssre.1995.1010

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

We examine the effect of the race of strangers encountered in public on the fear evoked by such encounters. We use the factorial survey approach to separate the effect of the race of persons encountered from age and gender of the persons encountered and the contexts in which the encounters take place. We find that whites are more fearful of encounters with blacks than those with whites. For whites, the fear of encounters with blacks is invariant across other characteristics of the persons encountered, the settings in which the encounters take place, and characteristics of survey respondents. We find that blacks are more fearful of encounters with blacks only in some circumstances. In others, blacks are more fearful of white strangers.