Contact, conflict, or opportunity? Out-group exposure creates tie opportunity, not tolerance

Three theories offer competing predictions about how people respond to growing diversity in their social environment. Contact theory suggests more exposure to out-groups reduces prejudice; conflict theory predicts a stronger in-group preference; structural opportunity theory argues that shifts in behaviour only reflect changes in the opportunity structure rather than in underlying preference. We test these predictions using friendship and rejection nominations from nearly 5,000 students in 228 classrooms, across gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status. We estimate individual preference using a multilevel model based on the Wallenius hypergeometric distribution, which accounts for the finite, asymmetric pool of potential ties. Results show that for ethnicity and socio-economic status, preferences are largely unaffected by classroom composition. For gender, however, same-gender preference strengthens as the out-group increases, supporting conflict theory. This means greater diversity does not necessarily change the intrinsic preference of students toward out-group peers, but creates more opportunities for cross-group interactions.