Reducing Prejudice & Discrimination

Direct intergroup contact

Allport’s (1954) Contact Hypothesis

Under certain conditions, contact between groups will reduce prejudice

Conditions promoting prejudice-reduction

• Equal status (eg. equal status in the interaction)

• Common goals

• Intergroup cooperation

• Institutional support (eg. support from authorities, laws, social norms)

Direct contact involves face-to-face interactions between members of different groups

Does direct ntergroup contact reduce prejudice?

Pettigrew & Tropp’s (2006) highly cited meta-analysis included 515 studies examining whether direct contact between groups reduce prejudice

Demonstrated that direct contact does reduce prejudice

Greater reductions in prejudice are seen under the conditons specified by Allport, but these condition are not essential for prejudice reduction

• Reductions in prejudice even if optimal conditions aren’t met

Issues and critiques of direct intergroup contact

Allport did not clearly explain the potential mechanisms involved in reducing prejudice in the contact hypotheuss

• HOW contact reduces prejudice

Direct contact isn’t always appropriate or possible

• 1969 - peace walls were built to separate catholic / republican and protestant / loyalist communities in Northern Ireland in order to reduce severe intergroup conflict and violence

• 2022 / 2023 - 92% of children in Northern Ireland attend segregated schools (where vast majority of pupils are protestant or catholic) (NI dept of education, 2023)

Mechanisms underlying how direct contact works

Pettigrew & Tropp’s (2008) meta-analysis demonstrated contact reduces prejudice by

• Reducing intergroup anxiety (ie. anxiety experienced during ro at the prospect of interactions with the outgroup)

• Increasing empathy and perspective taking

• Increasing knowledge about the outgroup (though this was the weakest mediator)

Indirect contact

Indirect (not face-to-face) intergroup contact interventions were developed

• Vicarious contact

• Extended contact

• Imagined contact

A 1/3 of all prejudice reduction studies interventions based on second-hand or imagined contact with outgroups

Vicarious contact

“Observation of an interaction between ingroup and outgroup members”

Vicarious intergroup contact can reduce prejudice

Vittrup & Holden (2011)

• Children exposed to racially diverse TV shows (eg. an episode of sesame street showing interracial friendships) showed more postive outgroup attitudes than children not exposed to these shows

Vezzali et al. (2015)

Exposure to passages from Harry Potter books (depicting intergroup friendships and intergroup prejudice) predicted improved attitudes towards immigrants in children who identified more with Harry Potter

Extended contact

“Knowing that ingroup members have contact with outgroup members”

Extended intergroup contact can reduce prejudice

Wright et al (1997)

• White, Asian and African American undergraduate students who reported knowing more ingroup members with at least one outgroup friend reported less prejudice towards outgroups

Zhou et al. (2019)

• Meta analysis supports that there is a positive relationship between extended contact and intergroup attitudes

Mechanisms underlying how extended and vicarious contact works

Mechanisms thought to drive the effects of extended (including vicarious) contact on prejudice reduction (eg. Vezzali et al., 2014 for a review)

• Reducing intergroup anxiety

• Increasing empathy

• Creating congitive overlap between the self and outgroup members (inclusion of toher in the self) - close ingroup members are considered par of the self, so this then extends to outgroup friends of close ingroup members

• Changing perceptions of social norms (ie. that ingroup and outgroup members support intergroup contact

Extended and vicarious contact issues and critiques

We can’t easily use extended contact as an intervention, as it would be difficult to deliberately manipulate whether someone from your ingroup has outgroup friends

• Though vicarious contact is a little easier to manipulate

Imagined contact

“Mental simulation of a social interaction with a member of members of an outgroup category”

Baisic experimental method

Imagery task

• Imagined contact - “I would like you to take a minute to imagine yourself meeting a British Muslim stranger for the first time. During the conversation imagine you find out some interesting and unexpected things about the stranger”

• Control - “I would like you to take a minute to imagine you are walking in the outdoors. Try to imagine aspects of the scene about you (eg. is it a beach, a forest, are these trees, hills, whats on the horizon)”

Measures of prejudice

Imagined intergroup contact can reduce prejudice

West et al. (2011)

• Ppts who imagined a positive interaction with an individual with schizophrenia, reported more positive attitudes than ppts who imagined a positive interaction with an individual who didn’t have schizophrenia

Miles & Crisp (2014)

• Meta-analysis support effectiveness of imagiend contact in prompting more positive attitudes, emotions, intentions and behaviour to a range of different groups

Mechanisms underlying how imagined contact works

Reduced intergroup anxiety

Increased trust in the outgroup

Imagined contact issues and critiques

Do imagined contact effects replicate?

‘Many labs’ replication project (Klein et al. 2014) sought to replicate Husnu & Crisp’s (2010) study on effects of imagined contact on reducing religious prejudice (amongst other studies)

Found a significant but very small average effect of imagiend contact on reducing prejudice across the 26 samples (>6000 ppts) vs the large effect found in Husnu & Crisp, 2010

Therefote argued that imagined contact effects do not replicate

BUT crisp et al. (2014) argue this isn’t unexpected - as the effect size for imagiend contact effects on religious prejudice in their meta-analysis were also small

Colourblind ideologies

We shouldn’t see people in terms of the colour of their skin

• We should see people as individuals and look beyond group differences

“An approach managing diversity in which intergroup and considerations are deemphasised”

Critiques of the colourblind approach

If we ignore intergroup distinctions, we ignore actual intergroup disparities and differences in experiences

• Microinvalidation

And we may be less likely to recongise intergroup disparities and discrimination

Apfelbaum et al (2010) colourblind ideologies study

Method

Children were given a digital storybook on equality where a teacher took one of the following approaches

• colourblind approach - “We want to show everyone that race is not imporant and that we’re all the same”

• value diversity approach - “We need to recognise how we are different from our neighbours and appreciate those differences”

Children were then told about some scenarios that varies in the degree to which they decribed racially biased behaviour

• No bias

• Ambiguous bias

• Explicit bias - “Max tripped Derrick from behind and took the ball…When one of Max’s teammates asked him about the final play, Max said that he could tell that Derrick played rough because he is Black”

The children then reported which (if any) of the scanrios showed racial discrimination

Results

Children were less likely to percieve discrimination in the colourbline story condition relative to the value diversity story condition (even when discrimination was explicit)

Education and consciousness raising

Factual education to increase knowledge about different groups (eg. addressing myths about mental illness)

Consciousness raising (ie. education about the existance of prejudice and discrimination, implict bias etc)

Perspective taking

Jane Elliot’s ‘Blue eyes / Brown eyes’ exercise

April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, US primary school teacher Jane Elliott held an exercise in her year 3 classroom, to teahc children about discrimination

The exercise was later filmed in 1970

• The eye of the storm

Separated children by blue and brown eyes then described the blue eyed people as being superior (smarter)

• Brown eyes not allowed to use the drinking fountain but instead the paper cups

• Brown eyes not to play with the blue eyed people on the playground

• Brown eyes wore collars to be able to tell they were brown eyed

Overall discrimination and comments towards brown eyed people, in reverse the bettering of situations of the blue eyed people

Children became nasty towards each other within a short amount of time

It was then reversed the next day (Brown eyed more superior)

• Brown eyed people got an extra 5 minutes of playtime

• Blue eyes not allowed on play equipment and not allowed to play with the brown eyed children

Brown eyed children who were in the low class on the first day did a phonics card task and they took 5 and a half minutes to complete it

• But in the next day when they were regarded as superior they took 2 and a half minutes

• Same concept for the blue eyed children

Taught the children about discrimination and its unfairness

Comments around the ethics of Jane Elliott’s exercise

“How dare you try this cruel experiment out on white children? Black children grow up accustomed to such behaviour, but white children, there’s no way they could possibly understand it. It’s cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage”

Elliott - “Why are we so worried about the fragile egos of white children who experience a couple of hours of made-up racism one day when [black people] experience real racism every day of their lives?”

‘The school that tried to end racism’

Channel 4 documentary set in south london school uindertaking the UK’s first trial of a programmed to educate children (year 7) about racial bias

Hughes, Bigler & Levy (2007) - study 1

Method

White American primary school-aged children elementary-aged children were exposed to history lessons (20 mins per day for 6 days) that included either

• Racism condition - explicit info about racism experienced by well known African American’s

• Control condition - identical lessosn that omitted the info about racism

1 - 2 days later, ppts completed the black/white evaluative trait scale (BETS) as a measure of attitude towards African Americans

“How many African American / white people are… (5 point scale: 0 = hardly any, 4 = almost all)

• Positive traits - eg. nice, honest

• Negative traits - eg. selfish, cruel

• Neutral traits - eg. curious, trusting

Results

Ppts who recieved history lessons talking about racism had signficantly more positive and less negative attitudes toward African Americans than ppts who recieved control lessons

Meta-analyses on the effectiveness fo education as a prejudice-reduction technique

Mental health stigma

Meta analysis by Corrigan et al (2012) foudn that educational interventions were successful at reducing mental health stigma

• ie. prejudice and discrimination

Prejudice and discrimination more boradly

Paluck et al’s (2020) meta analysis finds a small but significant effect of multicultural, anti-bias and moral education interventions on reducing prejudice

Prejudice confrontation

Also known as Bystander anti-prejudice

Directly confronting prejudice or discriminatory behaviours in others

• calling out or calling in prejudice

Confrontation can be enacted by the target of prejudice (or someone from the same group) or by an ally (ie. someone who isn’t from the target group)

Is it effective?

• Our recent meta analysis (wood et al., 2025) demonstrates that confronting prejudice significantly reduces intergroup bias, particularly reducing use of stereotypes and increasing intentions to control intergroup bias in the future

Czopp, Monteith & Mark (2006) - study 3

Method

White ppts completed a task with a white confederate which required them to take turns making inferences about sentences paired with photos of white an black people

Critical trials (only ever on the ppts turn) paired pictures of black men with sentences that could have both stereotypical or non-stereotypical interpretations

• Eg. “This person could be found behind bars” could be interpreted as ‘criminal’ (stereotype) or ‘bartender’ (non-stereotypical)

In a subsequent feedback task, ppts were randomly assigned to recieve one of the following type fo feedback from the confederate

• Confrontation of prejudice - “I thought some of your answers seemed a little offensive. The black guy wandering the steets could have been a lost tourist and the black woman could work for the governemnt. People shouldn’t use stereotypes, you know?”

• Other confrontation control - “I thought some of your answers seemed a little goofy. A traveller spends time in airports? A librarian has a lot of books? Couldn’t you think of anything better than that?”

• No confrontation control - “I thought you typed fast. Good job”

Ppts then completed the 20 item attitudes towards Black scale, at the beginning of the study and at the end of the study

Results

Ppts confronted about use of stereotypes reported a greater reduction in prejudice attitudes (ie. higher change in score) than ppts in the other confrontation and no confrontation control conditions

Chaney et al (2020) - Study 1

Do effects of confrontation of prejudice towards one group, extend to a reduction in prejudice against other groups

Method

White ppts interpreted sentences paired with pictures of white or black people

Critical trials paired pictures of black men with sentences that could have been both stereotypical or non-stereotypical interpretations

Half of the ppts who repsonded stereotypically, were confronted by the experiementer

• “I thought some of your answers seemed a littel offensive. The blakc guy behind the bars could be a bartender. People shouldn’t use stereotypes, you know?”

A week later, ppts completed a similar sentence inference task where sentences were paired with photos of white, black and latino men

Example sentence for latino men - “This person spends a lot of time in shelters” can be interpreted as homeless (stereotypical) or volunteer (non-stereotypical)

Results

White ppts confronted for using negative black stereotypes used fewer negative black stereotypes and fewer negative latino stereotypes than white ppts who weren’t confronted