From 1990 to 2004, there has been a steady decline in the percentage of whites who report negative stereotypes of blacks.  Given objective racial inequalities in income, the first trait rating—rich/poor—is not interpreted as a stereotype, but is included as a measure of the extent to which whites perceive racial inequality.  The vast majority of whites correctly perceive that whites are, as a group, richer than blacks, a perception that has declined somewhat from 83 percent in 1990 to 3 out of 4 in 2004.  Turning to the clearly stereotypical questions about industriousness and intelligence, the declines are more striking.  In 1990, 2 out of 3 whites rated whites as harder-working than blacks; a percentage that declined steadily until 2006, when the figure was 43 percent.  The belief that blacks are less intelligent than whites has similarly declined from 57 percent in 1990 to just over 1 in 4 in 2006.   
 

Throughout the time period in which the stereotype questions have been asked, it has been consistently the more highly educated and younger cohorts of whites who report fewer differences between whites and blacks in terms of their industriousness and intelligence.  At the same time, the quite substantial reduction over time in the level of stereotyping applies across the board:  well-educated and less well-educated, younger and older alike show lower levels of stereotyping in more recent years than in 1990.  Interestingly, regional differences have been less striking and consistent: indeed, by 2004, the “hardworking” and “intelligence” stereotypes did not show statistically significant regional differences.   
 

On the one hand, these results about the declining use of stereotypes may provide some reason for optimism.  Whites are less willing (in a survey interview) to draw sharp distinctions between racial groups on the traits of intelligence and laziness.  However, caution is advised against making too much of these findings.  First, social desirability pressures may be particularly at work on these kinds of items.  It is increasingly socially unacceptable to admit to believing in racial differences of this type, and thus surveys may under-estimate levels of stereotype endorsement.  Indeed, evidence from laboratory studies of “unconscious” stereotyping suggests that stereotypes continue to shape how whites think about race and racial groups (Fazio et al. 1995; McConnell and Leibold 2001).  Second, qualitative studies on racial attitudes suggest that the traits being measured by NORC may not be tapping those most prevalent in the contemporary racial climate (e.g., Waters 1999; Lamont 2000).  In other words, the intelligence question—though still revealing that 1 in 4 whites agrees that blacks as a group are less intelligent than whites—may tap a sentiment that is particularly prone to social desirability pressures because of the changing racial ideology away from an endorsement of “innate differences” such as intelligence and towards more cultural deficiencies.  There are hints of support for the idea that the traits being measured need updating.  In the most recent NORC data (2004), an additional trait was included in the stereotyping questions—“commitment to families.”  The results showed that more than four out of ten whites endorsed the belief that blacks had weaker “commitment to their families” than whites did.  Stereotyping behavior among whites may not have changed; but the content of those stereotypes and the ones that are acceptable to admit to, may have changed. 
 
 

Social Distance  
 

Tables: 3.1B, 3.3, Supplement 
 

Showing almost as much change over time as principles of racial equality are questions about the degree to which whites are willing to accept blacks into a range of social spheres.  Few questions continue to be included in surveys on this topic, largely because few whites object to minimal levels of integration (which were the focus of earlier questions).  In other words, whites by the late 1990s were almost universally accepting of “a few” black neighbors or classmates.  Where whites continue to report discomfort is when the numbers of blacks are greater than “a few” and where the sphere is more intimate, such as marriage.   
 

For example, beginning in 1990, NORC began asking whites how they would feel living in a neighborhood where “half of the neighbors” were black.  Between 1990 and 2004, the percentage of whites who “opposed” or “strongly opposed” living in such a neighborhood dropped from 48 percent to 24 percent.  To be sure, attitudes (as is typically the case) over-state actual behaviors; patterns of residential segregation demonstrate that few whites actually live in such neighborhoods and studies of the housing choices whites make reveal that whites are very likely to avoid just such diverse neighborhoods (Massey and Denton 1993).  However, it is also the case that just as there has been a decline (albeit slight) in actual patterns of residential segregation (Farley and Frey 1994; Logan et al. 2004), overt objections to integration have declined—though certainly attitudinal reports overstate the levels.   
 

Analyses examining trends across region, education, and cohort suggest that opposition to living in an integrated neighborhood has declined among all groups—southerners and non-southerners, those with higher and lower levels of education and among all four age cohorts.  Interestingly, in 2004, neither region nor education was significantly related to opposition to living in an integrated neighborhood; only cohort remained significant in 2004.  That is, pre-Civil Rights and Civil Rights cohorts continued to be more likely to oppose living in a neighborhood where “half of the neighbors” were black as compared to the younger cohorts.  For example, 34 percent of those in the pre-Civil Rights cohort opposed or strongly opposed living in a neighborhood where one-half of the residents were blacks; this was true of just 16 percent of those in the youngest cohort (born after 1963).   
 

Opposition to integration in the most intimate sphere—marriage—has also declined from 1990, when it was 67 percent, to 30 percent in 2006.  Similar data from Gallup confirm this general level of opposition to inter-racial marriage:  one in four whites disapproved of inter-racial marriages in their most recent survey (2004).  At the same time, although quite small, the percentages of actual inter-racial marriages in the U.S. have also increased over time; thus, the trends are similar between this attitudinal report and one behavioral manifestation.  However, the levels of approval are far greater than the actual levels
of inter-racial marriage.