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
What are the limitations of the contact hypothesis from social identity theory: limitation 1
Assumption that greater knowledge reduces prejudices - emphasis on similarities may help, but what about differences, if you uncover differences, how can you make it more positive? lots of contact = differences made bigger, how can you present them in a non evaluative way
relationship toward ethnic groups more conflictual in close cities compared to segregated with little contact
Intergroup hostility may be caused by factors other than ignorance (not knowing) - categorisation alone might be enough to have negative views, it is motivational
What are the limitations of the contact hypothesis from social identity theory: limitation 2
Interpersonal vs intergroup contact
Is the contact perceived in terms of intergroup relations or not?
similarity between groups encourages discrimination in order to preserve distinctiveness
Similarity is attractive in interpersonal relationships but not in intergroup relationships
- can be threatening
Similarities between individuals is good but not between groups, may want to change to be distinctive and unique
What are the limitations of the contact hypothesis from social identity theory: limitation 3
Generalisation of attitude change:
beyond the situation of contact?
to other members of the groups not actually present?
participants should see each other a representatives of their groups, and not as “exceptions to the rule” - if you want generalisation, it needs to be intergroup not interpersonal
Minard - when miners went home and left the company, they no longer had the positive attitudes because not in the environment
What did Wilder find?
Students, presented of an encounter of a student coming from a rival group, either prototypical or atypical of outgroup member
either pleasant and supportive, or critical and unpleasant
Results: only got improved attitude when seen as pleasant and typical, for all the others, get negative attitudes
People have to be representative of social group
What did Hewstone and Brown believe?
As long as individuals are interacting as individuals, no reason to expect generalisation to other members of group - unless contact is intergroup, gains only occur at interpersonal level, leaving intergroup relations unchanged
there is an importance of maintaining group boundaries, group membership needs to be evident
evidence now confirms contact effects are stronger when categories remain salient
What are limitations of the contact hypothesis from social cognition 1: limitation 1
In contact situations:
group membership likely to be salient
stereotypes create confirmatory biases
Intergroup contact could emphasis typicality, rather than creating a more differentiated view of the outgroup
likely to need lots of contact with lots of disconfirming members - single contact may not be enough, needs lots of contact, with lots of people, to get a change
What are limitations of the contact hypothesis from social cognition 1: limitation 2
Assumption that more knowledge will improve attitudes? Stereotype confirmation is a strong possibility
Generalisation of attitude change from individual to group as a whole needs to occur - need to change attitude of whole group, sub typing helps
issues lead to the suggestion that group memberships should be de-emphasized - to get deindividuated views
What are the conflicting views from social identity theory and social cognition theory?
Social identity - need contact with lots of groups, to get a chance
Social cognition - need to deemphasise group members, so seeing them as individual
What are the possible solutions? 1
- Decategorisation - Brewer and Miller
Replace category based with interpersonal relations:
Personalisation = reduce importance of group membership so that individual relationships can develop, reduce the importance of the group
Differentiation within outgroup category, so that outgroup members are seen as different from one another - make sure all outgroups are seen as more varied
What are the possible solutions? 2
Mutual intergroup differentiation
Hewstone & Brown
Avoid depriving groups of their valued social identities
“comparative interdependence” = each group views itself positively, and holds +ve stereotypes of the outgroup, consistent with that groups’ own stereotype - ignoring categories all together deprives people, so we want positive comparison within the group
this is difficult in practise: can we see differences without attaching stereotypes
What are the possible solutions? 3
Recategorisation - Gaertner et al
Don’t throw away categories all together, introduce categories which include in-group and outgroup people
Gaertner et al - recategorisation
Pps initially 2x groups of 3, then
- 1/3 recategorised into 1 group of 6
- 1/3 control - remain as 2 groups of 3
- 1/3 recategorised as 6 separate individuals
attitudes:
less positive towards outgroup overall
when people working alone, drop in attitudes towards other people
when working with others, higher attitudes towards outgroup
more attracted to outgroup when recategorised into group of 6 than control - shows putting people in new groups help see outgroup now more positively
Real world: might not always be the superordinate category to draw on
What does Hornsey and Hogg believe?
Balance of super-ordinate identity and subgroup distinctiveness may be best
Multicultural/pluralistic approach
Blend of mutual intergroup differentiation and recategorisation
Cameron et al - interventions
Stories about British kids being friends with refugee kids plus follow up discussion. Either read:
- individualisation/decategorisation - focussing on the individual characteristics
- recategorisation - focus on the superordinate school identity, reference to them all attending same school
- dual identity - common school identity but lots of info about refugees ethnic group membership
- control - no story
Attitude towards refugees - any intervention significant improvement on control, but dual identity better than the other two interventions
Do interventions work?
Yes but they take time - took 6 weeks in a study
When may the interventions work?
In a sequence, together
personalisation/decategoriation first so you can recognise similarities and build friendships, and reduce anxiety
then make groups salient and get generalisation - in-group differentiation
then can recategorise if appropriate
