Extended contact through peer modelling to promote tolerance in Finland

Abstract

A ®eld experiment studied the eect of extended contact through peer modelling for tolerance promotion among 1480 Finnish students (ages 13±15) in three pairs of middle schools that were matched on the proportion of foreign students (ranging from 3 per cent to 19 per cent) and randomised to control or experimental condition. In the experimental schools, printed stories of ingroup members engaged in close friendship with members of outgroups were presented in two sessions as examples of successful intergroup contact. In order to avoid subtyping, i.e. to ensure both inclusion of the ingroup member in the self and generalisation from the outgroup friend to the whole outgroup, the typicality of both the ingroup exemplar and the outgroup friend was enhanced. Intergroup attitudes were measured before and after the experimental intervention. A scale score measuring intergroup tolerance showed stability or favourable changes in experimental schools, while attitudes worsened or stayed the same in the control schools. The experimental eect was signi®cant in four statistical tests ( p 5 0.001 to p 5 0.05). The results show that tolerance can be improved or maintained by extended contact, i.e. peer modelling of positive intergroup contacts.

Acculturation and social attitudes among majority children

“…To illustrate this we can consider recent research using the extended contact paradigm, which operates on the principle that improved attitudes may result from vicarious experiences of friendship -that is, knowledge of ingroup members being friends with outgroup members (Wright et al, 1997). Several studies have provided supportive evidence for this hypothesis (Tezanos-Pinto, Bratt & Brown, 2010;Feddes, Noack & Rutland, 2009;Liebkind & McAlister, 1999;Turner, Hewstone & Voci, 2007Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe & Ropp, 1997).…”

Transformation From Representational Space To Tolerance Space: The Juxtaposition Of Ideal And Real In The Urban Public Area

“…Social psychology has been one of these fields; studies have investigated, for instance, the relationship between intolerance of ambiguity and sociopolitico ideology (Sidanius, 1978), tolerance promotion among students İNCİ BASA 226 METU JFA 2018/1 through extended contact (Liebkind and McAlister, 1999), the relationship between ambiguity tolerance and conservatism, as well as the value conflicts (Durrheim, 1998) and social discrimination and tolerance in intergroup relations (Mummendey and Wenzel, 1999). By addressing a variety of concepts such as multiculturalism, ethnic groups, social cohesion and diversity, in light of ingroup -outgroup paradigms, intergroup attitudes and psychoanalytic perspectives, researches in the field of social psychology have focused on identity patterns in society and tolerance for uncertainty, and analysed how social identity and outgroup tolerance overlap (Brewer and Pierce, 2005).…”

The dynamics of interminority extended contact: The role of affective and cognitive mediators.

“…Tezanos-Pinto, Bratt, & Brown, 2010;Liebkind & McAlister, 1999;Turner, Hewstone, Voci, & Vonofakou, 2008;Vezzali, Stathi, Giovannini, Capozza, & Visintin, 2015).…”