Factors relating to misanthropy in contemporary American society

Misanthropy is higher among those with lower socioeconomic status, subgroups toward the social periphery such as racial and ethnic minorities and Southerners, people suffering recent negative life events, those who do not attend church and fundamentalists, and members of more recent cohorts. For blacks, misanthropy is decreased by more social contact with whites, but the misanthropy of whites is not affected by contact with blacks. There has been some recent increase in misanthropy, but claims that misanthropy has shown a large and long-term rise are not well supported by the time series. (C) 1997 Academic Press.