Effects of absolute levels of neighbourhood ethnic diversity vs. changes
in neighbourhood diversity on prejudice:
Moderation by individual differences in personality

Laura Silva, Franco Bonomi Bezzo, James Laurence & Katharina Schmid

Social Science Research, Vol. 115, September 2023, 102919

doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102919 (View or Download the paper here)

This paper examines drivers of prejudicial attitudes among adults in the UK, focusing on the interaction between ethnic out-group size and personality traits.
Leveraging data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS), we use two survey waves carried out in 2000 and 2008, just before and after the EU enlargement policy that drove a wave of immigration in the UK.
We test the extent to which personality traits moderate the relationship between both absolute levels and changes in ethnic diversity at the local level, respectively, and prejudice.

Key findings suggest that both an individual's personality traits and the level of neighbourhood diversity matter for their intergroup attitudes. Secondly, personality traits, and in particular, one's levels of agreeableness, do appear important for conditioning how the proportion of non-white British in one's neighbourhood affects their prejudicial attitudes. Individuals with high agreeableness tend to be more tolerant of outgroup members and less likely to hold negative stereotypes.
One's level of agreeableness appears to determine how one reacts to neighbourhood diversity, potentially leading to an even greater polarisation in outgroup attitudes between low-/high agreeableness residents as neighbourhoods become more diverse.
Contrary to our predictions and prior research, we were unable to find robust evidence for the effect of openness to experience.

These findings have important implications for theorising how contextual and individual characteristics jointly affect intergroup relations.