Goldfish Learn To Drive

Attitude changes 
By the 1980s, results of the military’s experiment 
in integration were becoming apparent. In 1994, 
researchers reported in the American Sociological 
Review that military communities had the lowest 
levels of segregation in the country. 
Since then, researchers have shown that mili-
tary service seems to foster long-term changes 
in racial attitudes. Soldiers report that relations 
are better in the military than in civilian society; 
service members have higher rates of interracial 
marriage than civilians; and white and Black vet-
erans alike live in more diverse neighborhoods 
than their civilian peers.
Lundquist and others attribute many veterans’ 
increased comfort with diversity to a half-century-
old theory known as the “contact hypothesis.” 
Formalized by Harvard University psychologist 
Gordon Allport in the 1950s, the hypothesis has a 
simple premise: Social interaction across groups 
can reduce prejudices.
Testing that theory in the civilian world has 
proved difficult, however, as Black and white 
people often occupy different residential, social 
and workplace niches. “Segregation essentially 
prevents that sort of contact from happening,” 
Massey says. 
The military’s push to integrate has turned the 
institution into an ideal testing ground, Lundquist
says. Service members of different races and eth-
nicities regularly interact — in the mess hall, in 
the barracks and in their neighborhoods. And now 
Lundquist’s research and that of others suggests 
that those interactions persist across time.
To be sure, social contact among members of 
different races, and the accompanying changes in 
attitude, cannot completely erase racial dispari-
ties. Black service members and veterans fare 
better than Black civilians on multiple metrics, 
including homeownership rates and income, but 
they have yet to attain parity with white service 
members. 
For instance, in 2017, the median income for 
Black non-veterans in the United States was 
$50,300 compared with $77,400 for Black vet-
erans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s
Military boost
Among whites, Blacks 
and Hispanics, veterans 
outearn non-veterans. 
But like non-veterans, 
Black and Hispanic 
people who served in 
the military have yet 
to reach income parity 
with white and Asian 
veterans.
SOURCE: PEW
RESEARCH CENTER AND 2017 
AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY