reducing prejudice + discrimination

what is Allport (1954)’s contact hypothesis + its 4 conditions

under certain conditions, contact between groups will reduce prejudice → these include:

• equal status (no power differential) in the interaction

• common goals

• intergroup cooperation towards these goals

• institutional support, e.g. from authorities, laws + social norms

however, how contact reduces prejudice isn’t adequately explained

what is the direct intergroup contact method of reducing discrimination + how effective is it according to Pettigrew + Tropp (2006)’s research

involves face-to-face interactions between members of different groups → examination of studies found that direct contact does reduce prejudice

• greater reductions in prejudice are seen under the conditions specified by Allport, but these are not essential for prejudice reduction

what are 3 mechanisms underlying how direct contact reduces prejudice (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008)

• reducing intergroup anxiety at the prospect of interactions with the outgroup → shows anxiety is an important mediator

• increasing empathy + perspective-taking

• increasing knowledge about the outgroup (weakest mediator)

what is a practical criticism of direct intergroup contact + an example

this isn’t always possible/appropriate → e.g. peace walls were built in Northern Ireland in order to reduce severe intergroup conflict between Catholics + Protestants

what are 3 forms of indirect intergroup contact

• vicarious contact

• extended contact

• imagined contact

what is vicarious contact (Vezzali et al., 2014) + what are 2 examples of its efficacy

observation of an interaction between ingroup + outgroup members, which can occur in media

• children exposed to racially diverse TV shows (e.g. Sesame Street) showed more positive outgroup attitudes than children not exposed (Vittrup + Holden, 2011)

• exposure to passages from Harry Potter books (depicting intergroup friendships + prejudice) predicted improved attitudes towards immigrants in children who identified more with HP → modelled behaviour

what is extended contact (Vezzali et al., 2014) + what are 2 examples of its efficacy

knowing that ingroup members have contact with outgroup members

• white, Asian + African American undergraduate students who reported knowing more ingroup members with at least 1 outgroup friend reported less prejudice towards outgroups (Wright et al., 1997)

• meta-analysis supports positive relationship between extended contact + intergroup attitudes (Zhou et al., 2019)

what are 4 mechanisms underlying how extended + vicarious contact work

mechanisms thought to drive effect of extended contact on prejudice reduction include:

• reducing intergroup anxiety

• increasing empathy

• creating cognitive overlap between the self + outgroup members → close ingroup members are considered part of the self, so this extends to outgroup friends of those friends

  • we don’t want to hold negative views of the outgroup in order to keep positive sense of self

• changing perceptions of social norms → observing interactions shows that that intergroup contact is positive + socially normative

how are extended + vicarious contact related to one another

researchers often see vicarious contact as a subtype of extended contact → extended contact is knowing people have interactions whether vicarious contact is observing them specifically

what is an issue with extended + vicarious contact

we cannot easily use extended contact as an intervention, as it would be difficult to deliberately manipulate whether someone from your ingroup has outgroup friends

• however vicarious contact can be achieved through media

what is imagined contact (Crisp + Turner

mental simulation of a social interaction with a member/members of an outgroup category → this is easier to orchestrate experiments around as it doesn’t involve the interactions themselves

what the basic experimental method of imagined contact (Husnu + Crisp, 2010)

• imaginary task → experimental condition are instructed to take a minute to imagine themselves having a conversation with an outgroup member where they find out interesting things, while control are instructed to imagine walking outdoors

• take a measure of prejudice

what are 2 examples of imagined contact being effective at reducing prejudice

• participants who imagined a positive interaction with an individual with schizophrenia reported more positive attitudes than controls (West et al., 2011)

• meta-analysis supports effectiveness of imagined contact in promoting more positive attitudes, emotions, intentions + behaviour (Miles + Crisp, 2014)

what are the 2 mechanisms underlying how imagined contact works

• reduced intergroup anxiety

• increased trust in the outgroup

what did the ‘many labs’ replication project (Klein et al.,2014) find in regards to whether imagined contact efficacy replicates

when replicating Husnu’s study on whether imagined contact reduces religious + other forms of prejudice (across 36 samples), found a significant but very small average effect, contrary to the previous (large) effect

• argued that imagined contact effects do not replicate, though Husnu agreed that some forms of prejudice will be harder to reduce than others, so intervention will be more effective on some social groups

what are 3 positives of imagined contact use

• is worth assessing which social groups the intervention is more useful at reducing prejudice against → can be used in a more tailored way for groups with a larger effect size

• though it may not have huge impact, it still has positive benefits + is not taxing to run → direct contact has larger effect size but may not always be possible

• can be used as a preparatory tool in tandem with other interventions → participants more likely to proactively engage with outgroup (direct contact)

what are colourblind ideologies (Apfelbaum et al., 2010)

the notion that we shouldn’t see people in terms of the colour of their skin, but rather look beyond individual group differences to see them as individuals

• manages diversity by deemphasising intergroup distinctions + considerations

what is the main issue with the colourblind approach + what does adhering to it result in

belonging to a minority group influences how others/the world interacts with you → due to structural discrimination, different social groups have disadvantages within society

• if we ignore intergroup distinctions, we ignore their disparities + therefore discrimination → this is microinvalidation