Inter-ethnic preferences and ethnic hierarchies in the former soviet union

One-thousand two-hundred and ninety university students from twenty-seven ethnic?national groups across six locations in the former Soviet Union (Novopolotsk in Byelorussia, Kharkov in the Ukraine, Moscow and Nizniy Novgorod in Russia, Ufa in the Bashkir Autonomous Republic and Ulan-Ude in the Buryat Autonomous Republic) participated in 1991–1992 in a survey investigating the existence of ingroup preference in inter-ethnic contact, ingroup consensus on an ethnic hierarchy of outgroups and the measure of intergroup consensus on an ethnic hierarchy among the ethnic?national groups in each location. Hypotheses about ingroup preference, ethnic hierarchies and consensus were derived from realistic group conflict theory, social identity theory and from the assumption that outgroup preferences reflect considerations of the status effects of intergroup contact. It appeared that the last type of hypothesis could explain most of the results.