Understanding the impact of cross-group friendship on interactions with novel outgroup members.

We examined the cognitive processes that might account for the impact of cross-group friendship on novel intergroup situations. Study 1 demonstrated that closeness with outgroup members predicts an association of the outgroup with the self, both in terms of the group itself and the personality traits stereotypically associated with the group. In Studies 2 and 3, we manipulated the accessibility of either a same-group friendship or cross-group friendship. Participants who described a cross-group friend exhibited a greater association of the friend's ethnicity with the self, and this association mediated the effects of friendship accessibility on positive expectations for intergroup contact (Study 2) and adaptive hormonal responses during a real interaction with a novel outgroup member (Study 3). These findings imply that cross-group friendship improves novel intergroup experiences to the degree that outgroups become associated with the self. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can imagined interactions produce positive perceptions?: Reducing prejudice through simulated social contact.

The contact hypothesis states that, under the right conditions, contact between members of different groups leads to more positive intergroup relations. The authors track recent trends in contact theory to the emergence of extended, or indirect, forms of contact. These advances lead to an intriguing proposition: that simply imagining intergroup interactions can produce more positive perceptions of outgroups. The authors discuss empirical research supporting the imagined contact proposition and find it to be an approach that is at once deceptively simple and remarkably effective. Encouraging people to mentally simulate a positive intergroup encounter leads to improved outgroup attitudes and reduced stereotyping. It curtails intergroup anxiety and extends the attribution of perceivers’ positive traits to others. The authors describe the advantages and disadvantages of imagined contact compared to conventional strategies, outline an agenda for future research, and discuss applications for policymakers and educators in their efforts to encourage more positive intergroup relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can the absence of prejudice be more threatening than its presence? It depends on one's worldview.

The present research used validated cardiovascular measures to examine threat reactions among members of stigmatized groups when interacting with members of nonstigmatized groups who were, or were not, prejudiced against their group. The authors hypothesized that people's beliefs about the fairness of the status system would moderate their experience of threat during intergroup interactions. The authors predicted that for members of stigmatized groups who believe the status system is fair, interacting with a prejudiced partner, compared with interacting with an unprejudiced partner, would disconfirm their worldview and result in greater threat. In contrast, the authors predicted that for members of stigmatized groups who believe the system is unfair, interacting with a prejudiced partner, compared with interacting with an unprejudiced partner, would confirm their worldview and result in less threat. The authors examined these predictions among Latinas interacting with a White female confederate (Study 1) and White females interacting with a White male confederate (Study 2). As predicted, people's beliefs about the fairness of the status system moderated their experiences of threat during intergroup interactions, indicated both by cardiovascular responses and nonverbal behavior. The specific pattern of the moderation differed across the 2 studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The loyal member effect: On the preference for ingroup members who engage in exclusive relations with the ingroup.

The goal of this article was to investigate an indirect form of intergroup differentiation in children in the context of racial attitudes: the preference for ingroup members who interact positively with other ingroup members rather than with outgroup members. Study 1 confirmed this general hypothesis with preschool and 1st-grade children, demonstrating that respondents preferred the ingroup member who played only with other ingroup members, evaluated this child more positively, and felt more similar to him or her. Studies 2 and 3 tested the boundary conditions of the phenomenon. Study 4 analyzed developmental changes demonstrating that the effect is no longer observed among 9- to 11-year-old children. Overall, these studies suggest that engaging in positive interactions with the outgroup might have its costs in terms of a relative devaluation and rejection by one's peers. Results are discussed by stressing the importance of intragroup processes for the regulation of intergroup relations among very young children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reducing explicit and implicit outgroup prejudice via direct and extended contact: The mediating role of self-disclosure and intergroup anxiety.

In 4 studies, the authors investigated mediators of the effect of cross-group friendship. In Study 1, cross-group friendship among White elementary school children predicted more positive explicit outgroup attitude toward South Asians, mediated by self-disclosure and intergroup anxiety. In Study 2, cross-group friendship and extended contact among White and South Asian high school students positively predicted explicit outgroup attitude, mediated by self-disclosure and intergroup anxiety. Study 3 replicated these findings in a larger independent sample. In all 3 studies, exposure to the outgroup positively predicted implicit outgroup attitude. Study 4 further showed that self-disclosure improved explicit outgroup attitude via empathy, importance of contact, and intergroup trust. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, which argue for the inclusion of self-disclosure as a key component of social interventions to reduce prejudice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

We feel, therefore we are: Emotion as a basis for self-categorization and social action.

Building on intergroup emotion research, we test the idea that intergroup emotion influences self-categorization. We report two studies using minimal (Study 1) and natural (Study 2) groups in which we measured participants' emotional reactions to a group-relevant event before manipulating the emotional reactions of other ingroup members and outgroup members (anger vs. happiness in Study 1; anger vs. indifference in Study 2). Results supported the hypotheses that (a) the fit between participants' own emotional reactions and the reactions of ingroup members would influence self-categorization, and (b) the specific content of emotional reactions would shape participants' willingness to engage in collective action. This willingness was greater when emotional reactions were not only shared with other group members, but were of anger (consistent with group-based action) rather than happiness or indifference (inconsistent with group-based action). Implications for the relationship between emotion and social identities are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Have confidence in contact.

In an article in the May–June 2009 American Psychologist, we discussed a new approach to reducing prejudice and encouraging more positive intergroup relations (Crisp & Turner, 2009). We named the approach imagined intergroup contact and defined it as “the mental simulation of a social interaction with a member or members of an outgroup category” (Crisp & Turner, 2009, p. 234). Our proposition is that simply imagining contact with outgroup members can produce more positive perceptions of outgroups. In his commentary, Honeycutt noted that our “article is excellent in its premise” (p. 129), but he was critical of our decision not to discuss his own work in imagined interactions (IIs). Imagined contact is not a magic cure, and it is not a one-shot solution to the problem of prejudice. But as a first step on the road to reduced prejudice and more positive intergroup relations, it may just turn out to be invaluable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The evolution of intergroup bias: Perceptions and attitudes in rhesus macaques.

Social psychologists have learned a great deal about the nature of intergroup conflict and the attitudinal and cognitive processes that enable it. Less is known about where these processes come from in the first place. In particular, do our strategies for dealing with other groups emerge in the absence of human-specific experiences? One profitable way to answer this question has involved administering tests that are conceptual equivalents of those used with adult humans in other species, thereby exploring the continuity or discontinuity of psychological processes. We examined intergroup preferences in a nonhuman species, the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta). We found the first evidence that a nonhuman species automatically distinguishes the faces of members of its own social group from those in other groups and displays greater vigilance toward outgroup members (Experiments 1–3). In addition, we observed that macaques spontaneously associate novel objects with specific social groups and display greater vigilance to objects associated with outgroup members (Experiments 4–5). Finally, we developed a looking time procedure—the Looking Time Implicit Association Test, which resembles the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995)—and we discovered that macaques, like humans, automatically evaluate ingroup members positively and outgroup members negatively (Experiments 6–7). These field studies represent the first controlled experiments to examine the presence of intergroup attitudes in a nonhuman species. As such, these studies suggest that the architecture of the mind that enables the formation of these biases may be rooted in phylogenetically ancient mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

In the worst rather than the best of times: Effects of salient intergroup ideology in threatening intergroup interactions.

Three studies demonstrated that a salient multicultural ideology increases hostile treatment of threatening outgroup interaction partners. The effect of multiculturalism on hostile behavior was evident regardless of whether threat was operationalized in terms of disagreement with an outgroup partner on important social issues (Studies 1 and 3) or rejection by the partner (Study 2). Moreover, the results clearly point to the learning orientation fostered by multiculturalism—as opposed to other factors such as enhanced other-focus, group-level attributions, or focus on differences—as the critical mediator of its effect on hostile behavior under threat. Thus, it appears that multiculturalism enhances the expression of hostility because it prompts individuals to really engage with and attach meaning and importance to threatening behaviors exhibited by outgroup members. The effects of multiculturalism were distinct from those of anti-racism and color-blindness, which set in motion processes that in many respects are directly opposite to those instantiated by multiculturalism. The findings highlight that the behavioral implications of multiculturalism may be quite different in conflictual interactions than they have previously been demonstrated to be in less threatening exchanges. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-protective biases in group categorization: Threat cues shape the psychological boundary between “us” and “them”.

Across 6 studies, factors signaling potential vulnerability to harm produced a bias toward outgroup categorization—a tendency to categorize unfamiliar others as members of an outgroup rather than as members of one's ingroup. Studies 1 through 4 demonstrated that White participants were more likely to categorize targets as Black (as opposed to White) when those targets displayed cues heuristically associated with threat (masculinity, movement toward the perceiver, and facial expressions of anger). In Study 5, White participants who felt chronically vulnerable to interpersonal threats responded to a fear manipulation by categorizing threatening (angry) faces as Black rather than White. Study 6 extended these findings to a minimal group paradigm, in which participants who felt chronically vulnerable to interpersonal threats categorized threatening (masculine) targets as outgroup members. Together, findings indicate that ecologically relevant threat cues within both the target and the perceiver interact to bias the way people initially parse the social world into ingroup vs. outgroup. Findings support a threat-based framework for intergroup psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When trying to understand detracts from trying to behave: Effects of perspective taking in intergroup interaction.

Four studies demonstrate that perspective taking can backfire in intergroup interaction, leading lower prejudice individuals to treat an outgroup member less positively than they do when they adopt alternative mind-sets; for higher prejudice individuals, perspective taking instead had a positive, albeit less consistent, effect on behavior. The net result was behavior disruption, whereby individuals' treatment of an outgroup member became incongruent with their inner attitudes. This disruption effect was evident for cognitive and affective forms of perspective taking, in ostensible and real face-to-face intergroup interactions, and for feelings of happiness experienced by individuals' interaction partner as well as outside observers' behavior assessments. Results further suggested that self-regulatory effort mediated the effect of perspective taking on intergroup interaction behavior, with the negative consequences of perspective taking for lower prejudice individuals' behavior appearing to stem from complacency rather than trying too hard. Overall, the findings reveal that perspective taking rather than self-focus accounts for the cognitive resource depletion and behavior disruption effects previously demonstrated to stem from evaluative concern in intergroup interaction and indicate that perspective taking may be more reliably helpful outside of intergroup interaction situations than within them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

It's a wonderful life: Mentally subtracting positive events improves people's affective states, contrary to their affective forecasts.

The authors hypothesized that thinking about the absence of a positive event from one's life would improve affective states more than thinking about the presence of a positive event but that people would not predict this when making affective forecasts. In Studies 1 and 2, college students wrote about the ways in which a positive event might never have happened and was surprising or how it became part of their life and was unsurprising. As predicted, people in the former condition reported more positive affective states. In Study 3, college student forecasters failed to anticipate this effect. In Study 4, Internet respondents and university staff members who wrote about how they might never have met their romantic partner were more satisfied with their relationship than were those who wrote about how they did meet their partner. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the literatures on gratitude induction and counterfactual reasoning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Who cares what the outgroup thinks? Testing an information search model of the importance individuals accord to an outgroup member's view of them during intergroup interaction.

Four studies examined whether the intensity of individuals' concern with evaluation is affected by whether they are engaged in intragroup or intergroup interaction. According to the authors' theoretical framework, the importance that individuals attach to another person's opinion is a function of how predictive that person's evaluation seems to be of their social standing and outcomes. Members of lower status groups are more invested in outgroup members' opinions with increasing perceived legitimacy of the group status difference because outgroup members are seen as better judges of the competencies necessary for success in society. Members of a higher status group are more invested in outgroup members' opinions with decreasing perceived legitimacy of the group status difference because outgroup members are seen as better judges of moral goodness. Results were generally consistent with these predictions and demonstrated that intergroup exchanges are sometimes characterized by heightened levels of the basic motivation to know one's social standing with others. Findings also revealed that the interactive effect of group status and perceived legitimacy extends to egocentric biases that contribute to tension and miscommunication in intergroup interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disruptive Effects of Vigilance on Dominant Group Members' Treatment of Outgroup Members: Choking Versus Shining Under Pressure.

Three studies examined the hypothesis that evaluative concerns exert a disruptive effect on intimacy-building behaviors exhibited by dominant group members in intergroup interaction. The authors predicted that although evaluative concerns would lead individuals with a negative baseline response to outgroup members to shine (i.e., to exhibit warmer, more friendly behavior), such concerns would have a contrary, choking, effect on individuals with a more positive baseline response. Results were generally consistent with these hypotheses across 3 different operationalizations of evaluative concerns and regardless of whether individuals' orientation toward outgroup members was assessed in terms of prejudiced racial attitudes or racial ingroup identification. Implications for lower status group members' experience of intergroup interaction and for the prejudice-reduction process are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory.

The present article presents a meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. With 713 independent samples from 515 studies, the meta-analysis finds that intergroup contact typically reduces intergroup prejudice. Multiple tests indicate that this finding appears not to result from either participant selection or publication biases, and the more rigorous studies yield larger mean effects. These contact effects typically generalize to the entire outgroup, and they emerge across a broad range of outgroup targets and contact settings. Similar patterns also emerge for samples with racial or ethnic targets and samples with other targets. This result suggests that contact theory, devised originally for racial and ethnic encounters, can be extended to other groups. A global indicator of Allport's optimal contact conditions demonstrates that contact under these conditions typically leads to even greater reduction in prejudice. Closer examination demonstrates that these conditions are best conceptualized as an interrelated bundle rather than as independent factors. Further, the meta-analytic findings indicate that these conditions are not essential for prejudice reduction. Hence, future work should focus on negative factors that prevent intergroup contact from diminishing prejudice as well as the development of a more comprehensive theory of intergroup contact. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceiving outgroup members as unresponsive: Implications for approach-related emotions, intentions, and behavior.

In 2 studies, the authors investigated the determinants of anger and approach-related intentions and behavior toward outgroup members in interracial interactions. In Study 1, White and Black participants who were led to believe that their interracial interaction partner was not open to an upcoming interaction reported heightened anger and approach-related intentions concerning the interaction, including viewing their partner as hostile, intending to ask sensitive race-relevant questions during the interaction, and planning to blame the partner if the interaction went poorly. Results of Study 2 showed that White participants who received negative feedback about their Black partner's openness to interracial interactions behaved in a hostile manner toward their interaction partner. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the quality of interracial interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Seeming ambivalent, being prejudiced: The moderating role of attitude basis on experienced affect.

One experiment examined the potential for ambivalence toward the outgroup based on cognitive but not affective information to be functional to justify the prior expression of prejudice. To this end, the (prejudice expression vs. no prejudice expression) context of holding ambivalence toward the outgroup was manipulated before assessing all participants' cognitively based ambivalence and affectively based ambivalence toward the outgroup. Finally, all participants self-reported their positive affect. As predicted, participants whose prejudice was previously assessed, exhibited increased levels of positive affect to the extent that they were cognitively but not affectively ambivalent toward the outgroup. By contrast, replicating prior work, participants whose prejudice was not previously assessed exhibited decreased levels of positive affect to the extent that they were both cognitively and affectively ambivalent toward the outgroup. Consistent with recent, functional approaches to the conceptualization of attitude structure and prejudice, these findings provide direct evidence that cognitively based ambivalence toward the outgroup can contribute to the need to be prejudicial. The implications of these findings for ambivalence and intergroup research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reasons for skepticism about the efficacy of simulated social contact interventions.

Comments on Crisp and Turner (May–June 2009), who argued that imagining intergroup interactions reduces intergroup prejudice. They argued that the procedure is remarkably effective, with “significant potential application for policymakers and educators seeking to promote tolerance for social diversity” (p. 238). We believe that such interventions, although appealing to many individuals, are problematic and that the authors’ conclusions are overly optimistic. We believe that simulated contact interventions are highly unlikely to produce meaningful attitude change. In sum, we are deeply skeptical about the ability of imagined contact interventions to reduce prejudice. A single, brief, imaginary encounter with an outgroup member is unlikely to reverse or erase the psychological mechanisms that create prejudice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imagining intergroup contact enables member-to-group generalization.

Intergroup contact improves intergroup relations. In some cases, however, actual contact is impractical and here imagining intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) may represent a viable alternative. While initial findings have been promising, imagined contact research has yet to confirm whether it enables a critical process involved in successful intergroup contact: member-to-group generalization. We tested the hypothesis that imagined contact, and specific enhancements to the technique, are enabling in the form of generalized contact self-efficacy. In Experiment 1 participants who imagined a positively toned encounter with a single outgroup member subsequently felt more confident about future interactions with the outgroup in general. Furthermore, imagining contact was maximally effective at achieving generalization when group versus individuating information was salient (Experiment 2) and when the imagined interaction involved an outgrouper who was typical versus atypical (Experiment 3). These findings contribute to growing support for the notion that imagined contact represents a flexible, effective tool for improving intergroup relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does contact reduce prejudice or does prejudice reduce contact? A longitudinal test of the contact hypothesis among majority and minority groups in three european countries.

A widely researched panacea for reducing intergroup prejudice is the contact hypothesis. However, few longitudinal studies can shed light on the direction of causal processes: from contact to prejudice reduction (contact effects) or from prejudice to contact reduction (prejudice effects). The authors conducted a longitudinal field survey in Germany, Belgium, and England with school students. The sample comprised members of both ethnic minorities (n = 512) and ethnic majorities (n = 1,143). Path analyses yielded both lagged contact effects and prejudice effects: Contact reduced prejudice, but prejudice also reduced contact. Furthermore, contact effects were negligible for minority members. These effects were obtained for 2 indicators of prejudice: negative intergroup emotions and desire for social distance. For both majority and minority members, contact effects on negative emotions were stronger when outgroup contacts were perceived as being typical of their group. Contact effects were also mediated by intergroup anxiety. This mediating mechanism was impaired for minority members because of a weakened effect of anxiety on desire for social distance. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)