A widely researched panacea for reducing intergroup prejudice is the contact hypothesis. However, few longitudinal studies can shed light on the direction of causal processes: from contact to prejudice reduction (contact effects) or from prejudice to contact reduction (prejudice effects). The authors conducted a longitudinal field survey in Germany, Belgium, and England with school students. The sample comprised members of both ethnic minorities (n = 512) and ethnic majorities (n = 1,143). Path analyses yielded both lagged contact effects and prejudice effects: Contact reduced prejudice, but prejudice also reduced contact. Furthermore, contact effects were negligible for minority members. These effects were obtained for 2 indicators of prejudice: negative intergroup emotions and desire for social distance. For both majority and minority members, contact effects on negative emotions were stronger when outgroup contacts were perceived as being typical of their group. Contact effects were also mediated by intergroup anxiety. This mediating mechanism was impaired for minority members because of a weakened effect of anxiety on desire for social distance. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Three experiments tested the hypothesis that people high and low in prejudice respond similarly to direct stereotype activation but differently to category activation. Study 1 (AT = 40) showed that high-and low-prejudice people share the same knowledge of the stereotype of Black people. In Study 2, (N = 51) high-prejudice participants formed a more negative and less positive impression of the target person after subliminal priming of the category Blacks than did participants in the noprime condition. Low-prejudice people tended in the opposite direction. In Study 3 (N ~ 45), both high-and low-prejudice people increased negative ratings when valenced stereotype content was also primed. These findings support a distinction between automatic stereotype activation resulting from direct priming and that consequent upon category activation, implying that the relations among categorization, stereotyping, and prejudice are more flexible than it is often assumed.A man and a woman, both obviously Italian to judge from their looks and language, are engaged in an apparently confidential conversation that culminates with the man passing the woman an envelope.
We report a study of intergroup relations in a paper factory in which we examine the utility of three social‐psychological approaches: realistic conflict theory, the contact hypothesis and social identity theory. A sample of 177 shop floor workers from five different departments was interviewed. From them, measures of intergroup differentiation, perceived intergroup conflict, amount of intergroup contact, and strength of workgroup identification were obtained. The latter was assessed using a new scale of group identification developed for this study. Reliability and validity data for this scale are reported. Using multiple regression analyses we attempt to explain variance in respondents' intergroup differentiation using the other measures as predictor variables. The most powerful and reliable predictor was perceived conflict which, as expected, was positively correlated with differentiation. Less consistent was amount of contact which was negatively but only weakly associated with differentiation. Strength of group identification, while generally showing a positive correlation with differentiation as predicted, was also only a weak and inconsistent predictor variable. Noting that these results confirm findings from other studies we discuss their theoretical implications.
The present research evaluated an intervention, derived from the "extended contact hypothesis," which aimed to change children's intergroup attitudes toward refugees. The study (n=253) tested 3 models of extended contact among 5- to 11-year-old children: dual identity, common ingroup identity, and decategorization. Children read friendship stories based upon these models featuring in- and outgroup members. Outgroup attitudes were significantly more positive in the extended contact conditions, compared with the control, and this was mediated by "inclusion of other in self." The dual identity intervention was the most effective extended contact model at improving outgroup attitudes. The effect of condition on outgroup intended behavior was moderated by subgroup identity. Implications for theoretically based prejudice-reduction interventions among children are discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.