Intergroup Contact Flashcards
What is the contact hypothesis?
Interaction between individuals belonging to different social groups will reduce ethnic prejudice and intergroup tension
bring groups together, get to know more = improved attitude
What can change? Hewstone
Attitudes towards the outgroup - more positive, or at least less negative
Perception of variability of outgroup - see it as more varied, or less homogenous
Increased forgiveness of past misdeeds
Increased trust
Decreased anxiety - lower the anxiety the group has about interacting with other groups, anxiety uses our cognitive resources
What does Allport believe?
Contact could lead to an increase in prejudice as well as a reduction - not all contact results in a reduction
How does Allport believe the outcome of contact will be favourable?
When:
- ppts are of equal status - if they aren’t, get stereotype conformation
- pursuing common goals
- cooperatively - working together well
- backed by social and institutional support
What did Desforges et al show?
Participants were pre selected for negative attitudes towards mental health patients
Did a learning strategy task with mental health patient confederate, either worked alone or cooperatively
Results:
when working alone, had a positive attitude towards partner, but negative attitude towards patients in general
when working together, had an improved attitude of the patient but of the group as a whole - cooperation improved attitude
What does Cook believe?
Adds to original research
2 more requirements
5. outgroup member should disconfirm stereotype
6. high acquaintance potential - need to get to know others, potential to form actual relationship
What do the 6 conditions required for favourable contact maximise?
Likelihood that: find out there are similarities in values and beliefs, and provide a basis for interpersonal attraction
What was the first update of the contact hypothesis?
The original CH has been added to to the extent that it is overly specific and has lost explanatory power - the longer the list, the harder to satisfy, more to control for and more expensive it becomes
Many of the conditions facilitating rather than essential - reverse of original contact - contact usually produces positive effects, how well depends on facilitating factors
they aren’t essential - get an improvement without them
but evidence pretty good for Allports 4 main conditions
What was the second update of the contact hypothesis?
Pettigrew and Tropp
Meta-analysis of 500+ studies confirms that it generally works:
inverse correlation between contact and prejudice
On variety of DVs: emotions/attitudes/stereotypes
Negative conditions to be avoided are:
contact that is not frequent enough
Contact that is threatening or anxiety provoking
What sort of contact should be avoided? Pettigrew
Contact that is not frequent enough - one off might not work
Contact that is threatening or anxiety provoking
Why does effects of positive contact depend on the target group? Pettigrew
Strong effects for heterosexual prej towards gay/lesbian > racial prej > prej towards youth/elderly
Weak effects for prej against disability/mental illness
What was the third update of the contact hypothesis?
Causality? not much longitudinal research, it is contact which improves attitudes or other way?
could be that people lower in prejudice take part in contact, causing the improved views
but high in prejudice don’t take part
but some studies have done longitudinal and shown the causal relationship - enough evidence showing contact to improved attitude
How does contact work?
4 mechanisms from Pettigrew
- Learning about the outgroup
- Behaviour driven attitude change - if pleasant attitude, cause change
- In-group reppraisal - change what you think about own group and relationship without
- Generating affective ties, this is very important, if you have friends from other ethnic groups, have lower levels of prejudice
also:
- reducing anxiety you have about interacting with the group
- empathy/perspective taking - can encourage perspective taking, understand what it is like to be at the receiving en
- changing social norms - views about appropriateness of holding these views
threat or anxiety leads to negative outcomes
What is the extended contact effect?
Wright et al - not always necessary for the person to experience contact. Intergroup attitudes can improve if people witness rewarding cross-group friendships between others - knowing your group has had contact, can help you
Intergenerational extended contact effect - reminding young people their grandparent had contact with a group which is now viewed negative, is enough to shift attitude
What is social identify theory?
Social categorisation emphasises similarities within groups and differences between groups - when making comparisons between in-group and outgroup, we are motivated to see our group as distinct from the outgroup - we are motivated to focus on positively valued distinctions: in-group bias and outgroup derogation (seeing their neg characteristics)
In-group stereotypes serve important identity functions, threats to distinctiveness may be problematic