A matter of flexibility: Changing outgroup attitudes through messages with negations.

Abstract

Attitudes toward outgroups are an important determinant of peaceful coexistence in diverse societies, but it is difficult to improve them. The current research studies the impact of messages with negations on outgroup attitudes, more specifically on outgroup trust. All studies were preregistered. Using different target groups, Studies 1 and 2 provide evidence for the prediction that communicating negations (e.g., “they are not deceptive”) enhances outgroup trust (more so than affirmations, such as “they are reliable,” and no messages) among people who are initially low in outgroup trust. Three additional studies (Studies 3a, 3b, and 4), using both a causal chain approach and (moderated) mediation analysis, demonstrate that negations promote cognitive flexibility which in turn enhances outgroup trust among those initially low in outgroup trust. One final study suggests that these findings generalize to outgroup attitude change per se by showing that communicating negations also results in more moderate attitudes when the dominant initial attitude is positive (Study 5: high warmth) rather than negative (Studies 1–4: low trustworthiness). As such, communication that negates people’s initial outgroup attitudes could be an effective (previously discounted) intervention to reduce prejudice in intergroup settings.

Flexibility mindsets: Reducing biases that result from spontaneous processing

“…Across six experiments, we investigated whether cognitive conflicts caused by messages with negations (e.g., "Asylum seekers are not lazy") reduces the impact of dominant outgroup attitudes on outgroup judgements and whether an increase in cognitive flexibility would explain this effect (Winter et al, 2021a). In general, processing negations (e.g., "the door is not closed") requires a two-step mental simulation of conflicting alternatives (Kaup et al, 2007).…”

Mitigating the Default? The Influence of Ingroup Diversity on Outgroup Trust

“…Thus, the results in principle support the idea that an increase in cognitive flexibility (here due to high ingroup diversity) would lead to a reconsideration of previously held beliefs, that is, mitigate defaults in group-based trust. This ties in with a growing body of research that shows debiasing effects of increased cognitive flexibility in intergroup relations (e.g., Sassenberg & Moskowitz, 2005;Vasiljevic & Crisp, 2013;Winter et al, 2021). On the other hand, the observed effect is too small in size to be considered meaningful for practical purposes.…”

“…In line with this, Foddy and colleagues (2009) found that interaction partners from a positively stereotyped outgroup (i.e., nursing students) were preferred (i.e., trusted more) over members of a negatively stereotyped outgroup (i.e., economics students) in a monetary allocation game. Irrespective of the (positive or negative) outgroup Winter, K., & Sassenberg, K. (2021). Mitigating the Default?…”

“…On a broader level, cognitive flexibility is enhanced through the mental simulation of conflicting alternatives (Kleiman & Enisman, 2018;Winter et al, 2021) -which should also be involved in inconsistency resolution after diversifying experiences. With regard to the current research and in line with the CPAG model, increased cognitive flexibility has an impact on outgroup related judgements.…”

“…Other types of diversity or related concepts might be more useful for the same purpose. For instance, generating counter-stereotypic combinations of social categories, which directly asks for subjectively perceived inconsistencies, leads to both higher cognitive flexibility and a mitigation of default outgroup trust (Vasiljevic & Crisp, 2013;Winter et al, 2021).…”