The Relationship Between Personality Traits and Interracial Contact on Campus

Abstract

It is not well understood why, on diverse college campuses, some students are more likely than others to engage in interracial contact. While research has begun to examine the role of individual differences like personality traits, results have thus far been mixed. This article asks if this might be the result of confounding different forms of interracial contact. Using a sample of nearly 500 university students and drawing on distinctions made in research on diversity in higher education, models examining the relationships between the five-factor model (FFM) of personality traits and four types of interracial contact are presented: positive and negative cross-racial interactions (CRIs), and two ways of estimating interracial friendships (IRFs)—self-reported composition of close friends as well as the count of ego-network connections. Results show that having an Agreeable personality is associated with perceiving more positive and fewer negative CRIs, while no personality traits are associated with IRFs.