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Ingroup Bias, Trust in Racial Groups, and Generalized Trust among U.S. Blacks and Whites

Jeffrey G. ToussainT & K. Jill KiecolT

Virginia Social Science Journal | Volume 54 | 2020 | Pages 40 —55

ABSTRACT We build on a conflict theory of trust to investigate how ingroup bias and trust in ethnoracial groups are related to generalized trust. The theory may help explain Blacks’ lower generalized trust, which is sometimes attributed to low trust of Whites. Combined data from the 2000 and 2004 American National Election Studies (N = 2,417) were analyzed. As predict- ed, ingroup bias undermined generalized trust, and ingroup trust boosted it. Unexpectedly, however, Blacks trusted Blacks and Whites about equally. Overall, trust in ethnoracial outgroups mattered more for generalized trust for Whites. The find- ings challenge the assumption that Blacks’ lower generalized trust stems from low trust of Whites. They also indicate that a conflict theory of trust better explains trust for Whites.

keywords: ingroup, outgroup, bias, trust, ethnoracial groups

AUTHORS Jeffrey G. Toussaint Virginia Wesleyan University & K. Jill Kiecolt Virginia Tech

INTRODUCTION

Generalized trust—the perception of how much “most people” can be trusted—is a central foundation of society (Ross, Mirowsky, and Pribesh 2001; Uslaner 2016). Trust implies the belief that other people are supportive and can be depended on (Hardin 2002). It enables people to establish mutually beneficial, cooperative relationships with others (Ross et al. 2001). Greater generalized trust engenders a greater willingness to cooperate with others and to engage in civic activities, even with people one does not know personally (Stolle 2002). By promoting faith in others, trust helps people and nations address societal problems (Uslaner 2016).

A prominent theory of trust, the conflict theory of trust, proposes that ethnoracial diversity undermines gener- alized trust (Putnam 2007). Evidence for that part of the theory is fairly weak and inconsistent (Abascal and Bal- dassarri 2015; Putnam 2007; Uslaner 2010; van der Meer and Tolsma 2014). However, other key parts of the theory, which involve how people think about their own and other racial groups, have not been tested. The theory pro- poses that ethnocentrism, that is, ingroup bias, increases with ethnoracial diversity. Ingroup bias fosters trust in one’s own ethnoracial group, but diminishes trust in oth- er ethnoracial groups, as well as generalized trust (Brewer 1981; Putnam 2007; Stolle 2002). We take ingroup bias as our starting point to test these parts of conflict theory.

We expand the theory to propose that trust in one’s own racial group and trust in other racial groups also will be related to greater generalized trust (Delhey, New- ton, and Welzel 2011; Stolle 2002). However, we do not know whether that is the case. The few studies that have examined trust in one’s own racial group and trust in other racial groups modeled them as separate outcomes (Abascal and Baldassarri 2015; Putnam 2007; Schmid, Al Ramiah, and Hewstone 2014) and did not investigate how they were related to generalized trust.

Examining trust of racial ingroups and outgroups ad- dresses a longstanding question of whom respondents have in mind when asked about trust in “most people.” Some assume that both Blacks and Whites are thinking mostly of Whites (Simpson, McGrimmon, and Irwin 2007) and that Blacks’ lower trust in people reflects low trust of Whites (Smith 1997). If so, Blacks’ trust in Whites and per- haps other racial outgroups should help explain the racial gap in trust. This study investigates how ingroup bias, trust in one’s own racial group, and trust in other races are related to each other and to generalized trust among Blacks and Whites. Data are from two national samples of U.S. adults.

BACKGROUND

We expand on the conflict theory of trust to investigate potential sources of differences in trust between Blacks and Whites. The theory involves two forms of trust,

Vol. 54 | 2020 | Virginia Social Science Journal Toussaint & Kiecolt | Ingroup Bias, Trust in Racial Groups, and Generalized Trust | 41

generalized and identity-based trust. Generalized trust implies the belief that other people are supportive and will usually act in accord with one’s interests (Hardin 2002). Generalized trust in people helps sustain the social fabric (Putnam 2007; Ross et al. 2001), because it enables people to establish mutually beneficial, cooperative relationships with others (Ross et al. 2001). Trust helps in resolving issues and promotes cohesion in society. Moreover, it enhances economic performance (Knack and Keefer 1997) and promotes civic and political participa- tion (Delhey et al. 2011; Putnam 2007; Stolle 2002).

Identity-based trust, in contrast, is a more narrow form of trust. It refers to trust in people who belong to a given so- cial category (Freitag and Bauer 2013; Stolle 2002). In our expanded conflict theory of trust, identity-based trust re- fers specifically to trust in racial ingroups and outgroups. We discuss identity-based trust in more detail below.

Figure 1 shows the elements of the expanded conflict theory of trust that we test in our analysis: race/ethnicity, ingroup bias, trust in one’s racial ingroup, trust in racial outgroups, and generalized trust.1 In the sections below, we describe the connections among the elements.

Figure 1 shows that race/ethnicity (Black versus White) is predicted to be negatively associated with generalized trust. As noted above, numerous studies have established that Blacks have lower generalized trust than Whites, even after controlling for indicators of socioeconomic status (Abascal and Baldassarri 2015; Coverdill, Lopez, and Petrie 2011; Smith 2010; Uslaner 2010; Wilkes 2011). Numerous factors contribute to Blacks’ lower trust. Blacks experience discrimination across multiple institu- tions—the labor market, housing, and the criminal justice system. Structural inequality and residential segregation contribute to poorer neighborhood quality for Blacks, which fosters mistrust. Parents socialize their children to prepare to deal with the discrimination they will face from outgroups (Ross et al. 2001; Smith 2010). Blacks are expected to score lower than Whites on all the other vari- ables in the model as well (discussed further below).

Ingroup Bias and Trust Our theoretical model of generalized trust centers on orientations toward ethnoracial groups, which are likely to influence trust and to explain the racial gap. It has long been recognized that groups are “psychologically real” entities that people respond positively or negatively to, and that affect their behavior (Campbell et al. 1960:296; emphasis in original). According to social identity the- ory, people want to maintain positive group identities

that distinguish their group from other groups (Tajfel and Turner 1986). They do so by evaluating their ingroup favorably, but also more favorably than an outgroup. This sense of ingroup superiority to outgroups is termed ingroup bias (Brewer 1981).

Ingroup bias involves ingroup–outgroup comparisons, not merely favorable evaluations of one’s ingroup or unfa- vorable evaluations of outgroups (Bizumic and Duckitt 2012; Brewer 1981; Putnam 2007). Instead, ingroup bias is relative and variable (Brewer 1981). It ranges from evalu- ating one’s ingroup much more favorably than outgroups to (potentially) evaluating outgroups much more favor- ably than one’s ingroup.

However, because of persisting racial inequality, ingroup bias has different meanings for Blacks and Whites. For Whites, ingroup bias reflects cultural racism, ideas and images that convey White superiority (Williams and Mo- hammed 2013). For Blacks, ingroup bias implies resis- tance to cultural racism. We expect ingroup bias to be higher among Whites than Blacks. Blacks, like Whites, view their group very favor- ably; they endorse positive stereotypes of their group (e.g., being hardworking and intelligent) and reject nega- tive ones (Kiecolt and Hughes 2017). Nevertheless, mem- bers of higher-status groups tend to show more ingroup bias than members of lower-status groups (Hewstone, Rubin, and Willis 2002). Blacks rate their ingroup less pos- itively than Whites do (Bobo and Massagli 2001; Kiecolt and Hughes 2017), and they rate ethnoracial outgroups more favorably than Whites do (Bobo and Massagli 2001; Wodtke 2012). In a study that measured ingroup bias (dif- ferential racial ingroup and outgroup evaluations), Blacks showed little bias, whereas Whites showed ingroup bias vis-a-vis ethnoracial outgroups (Kiecolt and Hughes 2017).

As Figure 1 shows, ingroup bias should be related to greater trust in one’s own racial group (Brewer 1981; Put- nam 2007). When people shift to a collective identity as a member of a social category, they focus on their simi- larities to other group members (Tajfel and Turner 1986). As a result, they see less risk to trusting other members (Brewer 1981; Brewer and Yuki 2007). Consequently, peo- ple with higher ingroup bias should trust their ingroup more (Brewer 1999).

Ingroup bias is presumed to be associated with more negative attitudes toward outgroups. If so, it would be related to lower trust in racial outgroups and lower gener- alized trust. Research on ingroup bias and trust is sparse,

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but in one study, perceived superiority to racial outgroups was related to lower generalized trust among Blacks and Whites, especially if they felt closer to their group (Kiecolt and Hughes 2017). Based on the theory and research reviewed above, we predict that greater ingroup bias will be related to higher racial ingroup trust, lower racial outgroup trust, and lower generalized trust.

Trust in Racial Groups and Generalized Trust

In the U.S., race remains a primary source of social divi- sion (Bonilla-Silva 2018). For that reason, trust in one’s racial ingroup and racial outgroups are apt to be especial- ly salient forms of identity-based trust. As noted above, identity-based trust refers to trust in members of social categories or groups, only some of whom one knows (Brewer 1981; Stolle 2002). Identity-based trust can refer to trust in ingroup members, with whom one shares a so- cial identity, such as nationality, race, ethnicity, religion, and so forth (Stolle 2002). It also encompasses trust in members of outgroups (Freitag and Bauer 2013).

Like generalized trust, identity-based trust develops through people’s everyday experiences (Glanville and Paxton 2007; Ross et al. 2001). People interact with each other as members of social categories, such as ethnora- cial groups, even as they perform their social roles (Deaux and Martin 2003). People are likely to generalize from their positive (or negative) interactions with ingroup and outgroup members they know to other members of the category. Positive bonding interactions with ingroup members—based on strong ties (e.g., ingroup friend- ships) or weak ties (e.g., homogeneous associations) should promote ingroup trust (Stolle 2002). Similarly, positive bridging interactions with outgroup members— based on strong ties (e.g., interracial friendships) or weak ties (e.g., diverse associations) should promote outgroup trust (Stolle 2002).

Because people cannot interact with all ingroup or out- group members, making inferences about the trustwor- thiness of a group as a whole is challenging (Kramer et al. 2001). Nevertheless, people expect more positive behav- ior from ingroup than outgroup members, so they tend to trust them more as well (Kramer et al. 2001; Simpson et al. 2007; Smith 2010). Consequently, we expect that people will trust their racial ingroup more than racial outgroups. Previous cross-national research has shown that trust in outgroups (people of other nationalities and religions), as well as trust in people one knows personally, are posi- tively related to generalized trust (Delhey et al. 2011).2

In the U.S., generalized trust depends more on outgroup trust than on people one knows personally. However, we do not know how trust in one’s own racial group and trust in ethnoracial outgroups contribute to generalized trust. Based on Delhey et al.’s (2011) findings, however, we predict that both trust in one’s own racial group and trust in ethnoracial outgroups will be related to greater generalized trust.3 Interactions are the mechanism by which these occur. Both positive bonding and bridging interactions contrib- ute to generalized trust (Glanville and Paxton 2007; Stolle 2002). However, positive bridging interactions with mem- bers of outgroups should especially encourage general- ized trust (Marschall and Stolle 2004; Stolle 2002). In this regard, involvement in multiple voluntary associations fosters greater generalized trust by creating more diverse social networks (Glanville 2016). Interracial friendships also can encourage more positive views of outgroups (Pettigrew 1997).

Including both ingroup and outgroup trust as predictors of generalized trust enables us to address the longstand- ing question of whom respondents have in mind when asked about trust in “most people.” Some have specu- lated that both Blacks and Whites are thinking mostly of Whites (Marschall and Stolle 2004; Simpson et al. 2007; Smith 2010) and attributed Blacks’ lower trust in people to mistrust of Whites (Smith 1997). The more that gen- eralized trust depends on outgroup trust, the wider is a group’s radius of trust. If generalized trust for both Blacks and Whites depends more on trust of Whites than Blacks, then Blacks have a wider radius of trust (Delhey et al. 2011; Marschall and Stolle 2004; Smith 2010). Similarly, outgroup trust may be more strongly associated with generalized trust for Blacks than Whites.

We predict that Blacks will trust racial outgroups less than Whites do, based on a previous finding that used a composite measure of ethnoracial outgroup trust (Abas- cal and Baldassarri 2015). If so, outgroup trust will help explain the racial difference in generalized trust. Rath- er than using a composite measure of outgroup trust, though, we examine how trust in specific ethnoracial outgroups contributes to generalized trust. In our multi- racial society, Blacks’ and Whites’ perceptions of ethnora- cial outgroups may differ (Bobo and Hutchings 1996), and these perceptions may affect trust differently.

We expect to find lower ingroup trust among Blacks than Whites as well. Previous research has found that Blacks trust members of their racial ingroup less than Whites do, even after controlling for socioeconomic status (Abascal and Baldassarri 2015). Trust in one’s racial ingroup is pre-

Vol. 54 | 2020 | Virginia Social Science Journal Toussaint & Kiecolt | Ingroup Bias, Trust in Racial Groups, and Generalized Trust | 43

dicted to contribute to greater generalized trust, so lower ingroup trust among Blacks also would help explain their lower generalized trust.

We also explore how trust in one’s own and other racial groups are related to each other. Putnam (2007) suggests that ingroup trust is not necessarily negatively correlated with outgroup trust. He reasons that people with more bonding capital (ties to similar others) are likely to have more bridging capital (ties to dissimilar others) (Putnam 2007). If so, strong ingroup ties and ingroup trust should be related to greater trust in racial outgroups. Never- theless, he leaves open the possibility that ingroup and outgroup trust may be positively related, negatively re- lated, or unrelated to each other (Putnam 2007). Because evidence is lacking, we make no prediction.

METHODS

Data

We combined data from two cross-sectional surveys, the 2000 and 2004 American National Election Studies Time Series (ANES; Burns et al. 2016; University of Michigan 2016), administered by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. These were the only two years that the ANES asked about trust in racial groups; no more recent data are available. In both years, the weighted samples were representative of noninstitutionalized, En- glish-speaking adults 18 years of age or older in the Unit- ed States. In 2000, respondents were interviewed either face-to-face or by telephone; in 2004 respondents were interviewed face-to-face. In each year, interviews were conducted pre- and post-election. In 2000, response rates for the pre-election survey were 61.2% for face-to-face interviews and 57.0% for telephone interviews. For the post-election survey, response rates were 86.0 for face- to-face interviews and 85.8% for telephone interviews. In 2004, response rates were 66.1 for the pre-election survey and 88.0 for the post-election survey. Only respondents who were interviewed both pre- and post-election in either 2000 or 2004, were included in the analysis. The combined analytic sample consisted of 2,080 White and 337 African American respondents (N = 2,417). Weights provided by the Survey Research Center for each year ad- justed for sampling, nonresponse, and poststratification factors. We controlled for survey year in the multivariate analyses. Measures

Generalized trust. A scale of generalized trust used in previous research (Coverdill et al. 2011; Hughes and

Thomas 1998; Wilkes 2011) summed scores on three items. Respondents were asked whether most people can be trusted or one can’t be too careful in dealing with peo- ple, whether most people take advantage of others or try to be fair, and whether people try to be helpful or mostly look out for themselves. We coded trusting responses as 1, mistrustful responses as 0. The scale ranged from 0−3. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.78.

Trust in racial ingroup and racial outgroups. The mea- sures of trust in racial groups were based on ratings of trustworthiness as a general group characteristic of African Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Whites, from 1–7. Seven meant that almost all the people in the group tended to be trustworthy, one meant that most people in the group were untrustworthy, and four meant that the group was no closer to one end or the other. Ingroup trust was measured as Blacks’ rating of African Americans or Whites’ rating of Whites. Outgroup trust in Blacks or Whites was measured as Blacks’ rating of Whites or Whites’ rating of African Americans. Outgroup trust in Hispanics was measured as respondents’ rating of Hispanics. Outgroup trust in Asians was measured as respondents’ rating of Asians.4

Ingroup bias. Ingroup bias was measured by differential racial ingroup–outgroup ratings on two sets of items that measure racial stereotypes (Bobo and Johnson 2000; Kiecolt and Hughes 2017). Respondents rated Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Whites on (1) how unintelligent/ intelligent they thought most group members were, from 1 = unintelligent to 7 = intelligent, and (2) how lazy/hard- working they thought most group members were, from 1 = lazy to 7 = hardworking. Racial ingroup ratings averaged Blacks’ and Whites’ ratings of their own group on the two items. Outgroup ratings averaged ratings of each of the other three groups (Blacks or Whites, Hispanics, and Asians) on the two items. We also created a composite measure that averaged ratings of the two racial stereo- types (unintelligent/intelligent and lazy/hardworking) for all three outgroups.

Each respondent’s mean ingroup rating minus their mean outgroup rating for a specific outgroup yielded a difference score that ranged from –6 to +6. For example, a Black respondent who rated their ingroup as 5 and Hispanics as 3 would score +2 on ingroup bias regarding Hispanics. A White respondent who rated their ingroup as 1 and Asians as 3 would score –2, indicating outgroup bias toward Asians. Sociodemographic characteristics. The analyses con- trolled for age, gender, education, marital status, region,

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and survey year. Age and education are positively related to trust (Wilkes 2011). Women and married people tend to have higher trust than men and unmarried people, respectively (Smith 1997; Wilkes 2011). Trust in people is lower in the South than in other regions of the U.S. (Put- nam 2007; Smith 1997). Generalized trust has declined in recent decades (Wilkes 2011). Dummy variables were race (0 = White, 1 = Black), gen- der (0 = male, 1 = female), marital status (not married or cohabiting = 0, married or cohabiting = 1), region of residence (0 = non-South, 1 = South) and survey year (0 = 2000, 1 = 2004). Age was measured in years. Education was measured as 1 = grade 8 or less, 2 = grades 9–11, 3 = high school diploma, 4 = more than 12 years of school- ing, 5 = Associate of Arts degree, 6 = Bachelor’s degree, 7 = postgraduate or professional degree. All sociodemo- graphic characteristics except race were mean-centered in the regression analyses. Data Analysis

We computed descriptive statistics on the study vari- ables for the total sample, Blacks, and Whites. We also performed paired t-tests to examine differences between ingroup and outgroup trust. We then computed correla- tions between trust in one’s racial ingroup and trust in the three racial outgroups for the total sample and for Blacks and Whites separately. Next, we regressed ingroup trust and trust in the three outgroups on race and the control variables, then added ingroup bias to the models. Finally, we performed ordinal regressions of generalized trust in people, separately for each outgroup. In each analysis, Model 1 regressed trust in people on race, ingroup bias, and the control variables. Model 2 added ingroup trust and outgroup trust. We also tested for interactions of race and outgroup trust, to test whether outgroup trust mattered more for Blacks than Whites.5 We show significant interactions graphically rather than reporting coefficients, as recommended (Mustillo, Lizardo, and McVeigh 2018). Standard errors of test statistics were adjusted for survey design effects.

RESULTS

Table 1 provides summary statistics and compares Blacks and Whites on the study variables. As predicted, Blacks had much lower trust in people than Whites. Only 12% of Blacks, compared to 42% of Whites, were at the highest level of trust. Blacks also trusted other Blacks, their racial ingroup, less than Whites trusted other Whites. Surpris- ingly, Blacks trusted Whites more than Whites trusted

Blacks. The two groups did not differ on trust of Hispanics or Asians.

Paired t-tests revealed differences between ingroup and outgroup trust (not shown). On average, Whites trusted other Whites more than they trusted Blacks (t = 24.51, p < .001), but Blacks trusted Blacks and Whites about equally (t = 0.82, NS). As predicted, on average both Blacks and Whites trusted their ingroup more than Hispanics (t = 3.81, p < .001 for Blacks; t = 21.92, p < .001 for Whites). Ingroup trust also was higher than trust of Asians for both Blacks (t = 1.95, p < .05) and Whites (t = 11.41, p < .001). We also investigated how ingroup trust and outgroup trust were related to each other. In data not shown, for Blacks, ingroup trust was positively related to trust in Whites (r = 0.55, p < .001), Hispanics (r = 0.58, p < .001), and Asians (r = 0.53, p < .001). For Whites, ingroup trust was positively related to trust in Blacks (r = 0.34, p < .001), Hispanics (r = 0.38, p < .001), and Asians (r = 0.52, p < .001).

As predicted, ingroup bias was generally greater among Whites than Blacks. On average, Whites’ ingroup bias vis-à-vis Blacks was 0.91, whereas Blacks’ ingroup bias vis-à-vis Whites was –0.14, where a score of 0 indicated no bias. Similarly, Whites showed more ingroup bias vis-à-vis Hispanics than Blacks did. In contrast, Blacks and Whites did not differ on ingroup bias toward Asians. Both groups showed less ingroup bias toward Asians than other outgroups. In fact, average scores were below 0, indicat- ing slightly more favorable ratings of Asians than their respective ingroups. Table 2 shows the OLS regressions of racial ingroup trust and racial outgroup trust. Looking first at racial ingroup trust, as expected, greater ingroup bias was related to higher racial ingroup trust. (For ingroup trust, ingroup bias is the average of ingroup bias toward all three out- groups.) As against Table 1, the racial difference in trust in one’s own racial group was no longer significant when ingroup bias was included in the model. That is, Blacks’ lower ingroup bias helps explain their lower ingroup trust.

The other three columns of Table 2 show regressions of trust in racial outgroups. On trust in a Black or White outgroup, here, too, the racial difference disappeared when ingroup bias was controlled. As predicted, great- er ingroup bias was associated with lower trust in the outgroup. Blacks and Whites also did not differ on trust in Hispanics or trust in Asians. As expected, greater ingroup bias was related to lower trust in those groups as well.6 Of the sociodemographic characteristics, only age was

Vol. 54 | 2020 | Virginia Social Science Journal Toussaint & Kiecolt | Ingroup Bias, Trust in Racial Groups, and Generalized Trust | 45

consistently and positively related to ingroup and out- group trust. Education was unrelated to trust in one’s ingroup or trust in a black or white racial outgroup. It was positively related to trust in Hispanics and Asians, howev- er. Note also that the level of ingroup and outgroup trust did not change from 2000 to 2004.

Table 3 presents the ordinal logistic regression analyses of generalized trust in people. The coefficients are odds ratios (OR). Odds ratios of less than 1 indicate a negative relationship, and odds ratios greater than 1 indicate a positive relationship. For each racial outgroup, Model 1 shows the effect of race, ingroup bias, and the sociode- mographic characteristics. Model 2 added trust in one’s own racial group and in a specific racial outgroup.

The first set of models involve a Black or a White out- group. In Model 1, as expected, Blacks had much lower generalized trust than Whites (OR = 0.35, p < .001). Greater ingroup bias was related to lower generalized trust. Model 2 added trust in one’s own racial group and in a racial outgroup, in this case, either Blacks or Whites. The effect of ingroup bias was no longer significant. As predicted, trust in one’s racial group was related to higher generalized trust, as was trust in a Black or White outgroup. Notably, the effect of outgroup trust was the same for Blacks and Whites. Moreover, as race remained significant, low trust in Whites does not explain the racial difference in generalized trust.

The next set of analyses involved Hispanics as an out- group. Model 1 shows that ingroup bias vis-à-vis Hispan- ics was related to lower generalized trust. Model 2 added ingroup trust and outgroup trust in Hispanics. Both were positively related to generalized trust, and ingroup bias vis-à-vis Hispanics was no longer significant.

When Asians were the racial outgroup, the pattern differed. Ingroup bias vis-à-vis Asians was not related to generalized trust. As before, ingroup trust was related to greater generalized trust. For the total sample, trust in Asians also was related to generalized trust. However, as Figure 2 shows, trust in Asians interacted with race. It was only significant for Whites.

In Figure 2, the solid line shows that for Blacks, trust in Asians was unrelated to being at the highest level of gen- eralized trust. The dotted line shows that for Whites, the likelihood of being at the highest level of generalized trust was greater at higher levels of trust in Asians. Whites who trusted Asians the least (1 or 2 on a scale from 1 to 7) were no more likely than Blacks to have a high level of trust in people.

The effects of the sociodemographic characteristics were consistent with those of previous studies. Age, education, and being married or cohabiting were positively related to generalized trust. Residents of the South had lower generalized trust than others. Finally, generalized trust was lower in 2004 than it was in 2000. DISCUSSION

This study has examined previously untested elements of the conflict theory of trust (Putnam 2007), which links in- group bias and trust in one’s own and other racial groups to generalized trust. In addition, we expanded the theory to examine how ingroup and outgroup trust are related to generalized trust. Doing so enabled us to test an expla- nation for why Blacks have lower generalized trust than Whites do (Coverdill et al. 2011; Smith 2010; Wilkes 2011). Using nationally representative samples of U.S. Blacks and Whites, we tested the hypothesis that lower trust in Whites and other ethnoracial outgroups helps explain Blacks’ lower generalized trust. We also examined how trust in one’s own racial group and ingroup bias contrib- ute to generalized trust. Our study adds to the literature on generalized trust, trust in ingroups and outgroups, and race and trust. Three findings are especially noteworthy. First, our findings challenge the assumption that Blacks’ low trust in Whites or other racial outgroups largely accounts for their lower generalized trust. In our data Blacks trusted Whites more than Whites trusted Blacks, and Blacks and Whites did not differ on trust in Hispanics or Asians. This result differs from a previous finding that Blacks have lower overall outgroup trust than Whites (Abascal and Baldassarri 2015). However, it is consistent with the finding that Blacks and Whites showed equally trusting behavior (Simpson et al. 2007). Consequently, low trust in Whites does not explain Blacks’ lower gener- alized trust. We also found that Blacks’ trust in Whites and Whites’ trust in Blacks had the same positive association with generalized trust, no more and no less. Similarly, both Blacks’ and Whites’ trust in Hispanics was related to greater generalized trust, to the same extent. For Blacks, though, trust in Asians was unrelated to generalized trust. For Whites, trust in all racial outgroups was related to greater generalized trust. On balance, outgroup trust matters somewhat more for Whites than Blacks. These findings indicate that the radius of trust is narrower for Blacks than for Whites, contrary to what we might have expected (Marschall and Stolle 2004). They also

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