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Previous research has shown that (1) positive intergroup contact with an advantaged group can discourage collective action among disadvantaged-group members and (2) positive intergroup contact can encourage advantaged-group members to take action on behalf of disadvantaged outgroups. Two studies investigated the effects of negative as well as positive intergroup contact.Study 1 (N = 482) found that negative but not positive contact with heterosexual people was associated with sexual-minority students' engagement in collective action (via group identification and perceived discrimination). Among heterosexual students, positive and negative contact were associated with, respectively, more and less LGB activism. Study 2 (N = 1,469) found that only negative contact (via perceived discrimination) predicted LGBT students' collective action intentions longitudinally while only positive contact predicted heterosexual/cisgender students'LGBT activism. Implications for the relationship between intergroup contact, collective action, and social change are discussed.

Decision-making groups are often biased in favor of shared information (sharedness bias) and in favor of its members' initial preferences (preference bias). The present experiment aimed at analyzing both biases at the group level (communication of information and preferences) and at the individual level (evaluation of information) simultaneously. Two interventions were evaluated, each focusing on one of the two biases and illustrating it with a group exercise. The interventions enhanced the amount of discussed information and reduced the preference bias but had no effects on decision quality. Dissent (diversity in members' initial preferences) enhanced the preference bias in information exchange but reduced both biases in information evaluation and improved decision quality when no intervention was applied. Decision quality correlated with individual-level processes but not with group-level processes.

Influencing others by using harsh tactics is more likely to violate justice norms than influencing by using soft tactics. Therefore, powerholders are supposed to enhance the self and devalue the targets more to justify harsh influence tactics. These social re-evaluations should also be more likely after influencing with tactics that are incongruent with the powerholders’ power base (e.g. harsh tactics based on expert power or soft tactics based on position power). In two experiments with 61 interacting groups, one person in each group was presented as having expert versus position power and instructed to influence by using harsh versus by soft tactics. As expected, powerholders who influenced by harsh versus soft tactics enhanced self-evaluation (experiment 1) and reduced target evaluation (experiment 2), and powerholders who influenced by incongruent tactics enhanced self-evaluation (both experiments).

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