Nice to Know You? Testing Contact,Cultural, and Group Threat Theories of Anti‐Black and Anti‐Hispanic Stereotypes*

Objective. Many racial/ethnic policies in the United States—from desegregation to affirmative action policies—presume that contact improves racial/ethnic relations. Most research, however, tests related theories in isolation from one another and focuses on black‐white contact. This article tests contact, cultural, and group threat theories to learn how contact in different interactive settings affects whites' stereotypes of blacks and Hispanics, now the largest minority group in the country. Method. We use multi‐level modeling on 2000 General Social Survey data linked to Census 2000 metropolitan statistical area/county‐level data. Results. Net of the mixed effects of regional culture and racial/ethnic composition, contact in certain interactive settings ameliorates anti‐black and anti‐Hispanic stereotypes. Conclusions. Cultural and group threat theories better explain anti‐black stereotypes than anti‐Hispanic stereotypes, but as contact theory suggests, stereotypes can be overcome with relatively superficial contact under the right conditions. Results provide qualified justification for the preservation of desegregation and affirmative action policies.     

Quantile Plots,Partial Orders,and Financial Risk

Quantile-quantile plots are most commonly used to compare the shapes of distributions, but they may also be used in conjunction with partial orders on distributions to compare the level and dispersion of distributions that have different shapes. We discuss several easily recognized patterns in quantile-quantile plots that suffice to demonstrate that one distribution is smaller than another in terms of each of several partial orders. We illustrate with financial applications, proposing a quantile plot for comparing the risks and returns of portfolios of investments. As competing portfolios have distributions that differ in level, dispersion, and shape, it is not sufficient to compare portfolios using measures of location and dispersion, such as expected returns and variances; however, quantile plots, with suitable scaling, do aid in such comparisons. In two plots, we compare specific portfolios to the stock market as a whole, finding these portfolios to have higher returns, greater risks or dispersion, thicker tails than their greater dispersion alone would justify. Nonetheless, investors in these risky portfolios are more than adequately compensated for the risks undertaken.