Relationship between Knowledge, Stereotyping, and Prejudice in Interethnic Communication

This study describes, analyzes, critiques, and synthesizes four theories pertaining to interethnic communication: the contact hypothesis, Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory, Cultural Theory, and the White Racial Identity Development Model. All center on the relationship between knowledge, stereotyping, and prejudice. What is valuable about those theories is that they attempt to integrate communication into a perspective on cultural, behavioral, social, interactional, and developmental transformations. What the four theories have in common is that the understanding and development of healthy interethnic relations and flexible interactions require a high degree of in-group communication and, at the same time, an equally high degree of out-group communication. To corroborate the major arguments put forward in this study, relevant research studies (and the methodological underpinnings thereof) are analyzed. Three levels of knowledge (highest level of knowledge, middle level of knowledge, and lowest level of knowledge) are also compared in an attempt to confirm, or disconfirm, the idea that increased knowledge of minority groups increases liking of such groups.