Guided by the early findings of social scientists, practitioners have long advocated for greater contact between groups to reduce prejudice and increase social cohesion. Recent work, however, suggests that intergroup contact can undermine support for social change towards greater equality, especially among disadvantaged group members. Using a large and heterogeneous dataset (12,997 individuals from 69 countries), we demonstrate that intergroup contact and support for social change towards greater equality are positively associated among members of advantaged groups (ethnic majorities and cis-heterosexuals) but negatively associated among disadvantaged groups (ethnic minorities and sexual and gender minorities). Specification curve analysis revealed important variation in the size-and at times, direction-of correlations, depending on how contact and support for social change were measured. This allowed us to identify one type of support for change-willingness to work in solidaritythat is positively associated with intergroup contact among both advantaged and disadvantaged group members.

Koc for their additional help with the translation and/or data collection. We also thank Léïla Eisner for her insightful comments. Finally, we thank the SoSci Panel, PlanetRomeo, East meets West, Psychologie Heute, and all other LGBTIQþ organizations for distributing the survey. Additional information for the article is available at Open Science Framework (https:// osf.io/mdngf/).

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Many people believe in extra-sensory perception, e.g. the ability to communicate with thoughts, to sense future events or locate radiation with the help of a V-shaped piece of wood. Addressing a gap in research specifically focused on ESP beliefs, we investigated cognitive styles and basic motivations related to these beliefs in two survey studies. The findings suggest that a propensity to use intuition is the best predictor of ESP beliefs in terms of cognitive style. ESP belief is positively related to fear of death, and this relation is partly mediated by fatalism, i.e. the belief that chance controls one’s life. ESP beliefs do not seem to be perceived as irreconcilable with a rational view of reality however, they do not necessarily provide psychological protection from existential concerns. The implications of the findings in terms of costs and benefits of these beliefs and the possibility to change them are discussed.

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