Social Psychology: Intergroup Contact and Prejudice Reduction

Intergroup Contact and Prejudice Reduction

The Paradox of Northern Ireland: Violence and Segregation

  • "The Troubles": A prolonged period of violence in Northern Ireland between:
    • Nationalist community: Primarily Roman Catholic minority, sought independence from the UK and merger with the Irish Republic.
    • Unionist community: Primarily Protestant majority, sought for Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK.
  • Violence extended to British security forces and terrorist attacks by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in English cities.
  • Good Friday Agreement (1998): Culmination of negotiations that significantly reduced violence, though prejudice and mistrust persist.
  • Striking Feature: This reconciliation was not associated with increased contact; instead, segregation in schools and housing increased during the Troubles and continues.
    • "Peace walls" were erected in areas like Belfast (e.g., Cupar Way peace wall, dividing Protestant Shankill Road from Catholic Falls Road) to defuse sectarian tensions; most are still standing.
    • "Peace gates" have been opened more recently to foster interaction, but barriers remain.
  • Initial Question: Does this imply contact between groups is harmful, and separation resolves conflict? Limited contact is necessary for conflict itself (groups must reach each other to harm each other). However, some older thinkers (e.g., Baker, 1934) believed contact fueled hatred.

General Effect of Intergroup Contact

  • Contrary to the idea that contact fuels conflict, hundreds of studies suggest that contact between groups tends to douse, rather than fuel, the fires of intergroup conflict (Paluck, Green & Green, 2018; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006, 2008; Ramos et al., in press).
  • More precisely, research indicates contact generally reduces prejudice that individuals feel towards outgroups.
  • Contact has become the most studied method for reducing prejudice.

Contact Theory: Allport's Optimal Conditions

  • Systematic Theoretical Foundation: Contact theory was laid out by Allport (1954b) in his book The Nature of Prejudice.
    • Aside: This book also contained foundational insights on dehumanization, moral exclusion, and categorization's role in prejudice.
  • Basic Tenet: Bringing members of opposing groups together should improve intergroup relations and reduce prejudice and discrimination.
  • Allport's Four Optimal Conditions for Prejudice Reduction:
    1. Equality of status: Groups must have roughly equal status in the specific contact situation.
      • Inequality can be exploited by advantaged groups and resented by others.
      • Example: In Northern Ireland, the unionist community is larger and more affluent, which can erode contact's value (Brewer & Kramer, 1985; Foster & Finchilescu, 1986).
      • Crucial Insight: The perception of equal status within the situation is most important (Cohen, 1982; Riordan & Ruggiero, 1980; Robinson & Preston, 1976). Success is possible even if groups enter with different overall status (Patchen, 1982; Schofield & Eurich-Fulcer, 2001).
    2. Common goals: Individuals should work towards a goal shared by both groups.
      • Example: Mixed-race sports teams striving for victory reduces racial prejudice (Patchen, 1982).
    3. Intergroup cooperation: Pursuit of common goals should be based on cooperation, not competition, among members.
      • Example: The Robbers Cave experiment (Sherif et al., (1954)1961) showed peace-making effects when Rattlers and Eagles worked together (see Chapter 11).
    4. Support of authorities, law, or custom: Official backing legitimizes the contact situation and establishes acceptance as the norm.
      • Important for positive attitudes to generalize beyond the immediate situation and persons involved (a key challenge in contact research).
      • Shown important in field studies: military (Landis, Hope & Day, 1984), credit card company (Morrison & Herlihy, 1992), church (Parker, 1968).
  • Effectiveness of Conditions (Pettigrew & Tropp Meta-analysis, 2006):
    • Contact generally works even when optimal conditions are not all present.
    • Contact reduced prejudice not only between racial/ethnic groups but also based on age, disability, mental illness, and sexual orientation.
    • Effect Size: Contact (independent variable) generally explained around 7 ext{ per cent} of the variance in prejudice (dependent variable).
    • Effects are highly statistically significant and in the right direction.
    • Support for Allport: The effect of contact increased when all four optimal conditions were present.
    • "Package Effect": Benefits are clearest when conditions are together as a package, creating the right atmosphere, rather than incrementally adding up (Pettigrew & Hewstone, 2017).
      • Example: Cooperative work towards common goals may not help unless groups work as equals with authority sanction.
    • Cultural Context: A meta-analysis of 660 samples suggests contact is more successful in cultural contexts with low inequality and less successful in hierarchical, unequal cultures (Kende et al., 2018).
  • Practical Application: The "jigsaw classroom" (Aronson et al., 1978) is a widely used and successful classroom intervention adapting optimal contact principles. Teachers bring children from different social groups to work cooperatively as equals towards common goals.

When Direct Contact Is Not Possible: Indirect Forms of Contact

  • Limitations of Direct Contact: It can be difficult and expensive to arrange controlled contact, groups may be geographically separated or hostile, and prejudice might be too intense (Staub, 1996; Stephan & Stephan, 1984).
  • Extended Contact Effect (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe & Ropp, 1997):
    • Definition: People are less prejudiced if they know an ingroup friend has high-quality friendships with outgroup members, even if their own contact with the outgroup is limited.
    • Replications and Evidence:
      • Northern Ireland (Paolini, Hewstone, Cairns & Voci, 2004): Catholics less prejudiced towards Protestants if they knew a Catholic friend was good friends with a Protestant.
      • Predicts positive attitudes towards cross-group dating and general intergroup attitudes (Paterson, Turner & Conner, 2015).
      • Improved attitudes towards homosexual people and reduced dehumanization (Capozza, Falvo, Trifiletti & Pagani, 2014) – suggesting "including the other in the self" (Wright, Aron & Tropp, 2002) reduces dislike.
    • Correlational vs. Experimental Evidence:
      • Initial studies were correlational (lower personal prejudice associated with extended contact), raising the question of causality.
      • Experimental evidence supports the hypothesis: Liebkind and McAlister (1999) lowered prejudice in adolescents by exposing them to ingroup members friendly with outgroup members.
      • Interventions based on extended contact reduced British schoolchildren's prejudice towards refugees (Cameron, Rutland, Brown & Douch, 2006) and the disabled (Cameron & Rutland, 2006), and increased cross-group friendships (Vezzali et al., 2015).
      • Improved attitudes towards people with schizophrenia (West & Turner, 2014; Islam & Hewstone, 1993; Turner et al., 2008).
  • Imagined Contact Effect (Crisp & Turner, 2009):
    • Definition: Prejudice may be reduced, at least temporarily, by merely imagining a positive episode of contact with an outgroup member.
      • Example: Imagining a pleasant conversation on a train with someone of a different background (race, religion, age, sexuality) can improve feelings towards their group.
    • Experimental Evidence:
      • Turner, Crisp & Lambert (2007) showed British participants imagining contact with older adults or heterosexual men imagining non-sexual contact with gay men resulted in lower intergroup bias compared to controls. Participants could not guess the experiment's aim, ruling out demand characteristics.
      • Replicated in several intergroup contexts (Miles & Crisp, 2014) and effective in interventions for schoolchildren (Stathi et al., 2014; Turner, West & Christie, 2013).
      • Reduced implicit prejudice (measured by Implicit Association Test, IAT) (Turner & Crisp, 2010), which is harder to fake, further countering demand characteristics arguments.
    • Other Intriguing Effects:
      • Reduced Stereotype Threat: Older adults who imagined positive contact with younger people were less susceptible to stereotype threat effects on intellectual performance (Abrams et al., 2008), which typically declines when reminded of negative stereotypes of the elderly (Abrams, Eller & Bryant, 2006).
      • Positive Trait Projection: Majority/mestizo Mexicans who imagined contact with indigenous/Amerindian Mexicans were more prone to projecting their own positive traits to the outgroup (Stathi & Crisp, 2008). This suggests the outgroup is seen as less different, contributing to positive feelings (Ames, 2004; Jones, 2004; Brown & Hewstone, 2005) (research is pending on direct reduction of prejudice by projection).
    • Complicating Factor: If individuals imagine contact with a threatening or challenging group (e.g., schizophrenics), prejudices can be heightened, amplifying pre-existing tensions (West, Holmes & Hewstone, 2011). This can be reduced by integrating positive features into the images.
    • Controversy (Replicability):
      • Husnu & Crisp (2010) found British non-Muslims who imagined interacting with a Muslim stranger showed significantly higher contact intentions.
      • The Many Labs project (Klein et al., 2014) attempted to replicate this across 36 samples and found the effect only 4 times (i.e., in one-ninth of studies), suggesting original studies overestimated the effect.
      • Crisp, Miles & Husnu (2014; Crisp & Birtel, 2014) countered, arguing the findings may still support the existence of the imagined contact effect. This remains an active area of inquiry.
  • Virtual Intergroup Contact:
    • Definition: Indirect contact via computer-based communication systems, where members interact without physical presence.
    • Effectiveness:
      • Tavakoli, Hatami & Thorngate (2010): Canadian and Iranian students exchanging emails for seven weeks developed more favorable attitudes towards the other country's people (though judgments of cultural similarities remained unchanged).
      • This positive effect may be reduced if contact is anonymous (Schumann et al., 2017), a common feature of online communication.
      • Seen as a fruitful avenue for improving intergroup attitudes given prevalent online communication.

Overall Effectiveness of Contact

  • Meta-analysis (Lemmer & Wagner, 2015): Examined a wide range of direct (face-to-face) and indirect (extended/virtual) real-world contact interventions.
  • Findings: Contact interventions have been effective in improving intergroup attitudes.
    • Changes tend to persist over time.
    • Effective even in difficult intergroup conflicts (e.g., Middle East).
    • Generalize to other outgroups.
  • This meta-analysis provides strong evidence for contact as a prejudice reduction technique.

Critical Focus: Reservations and Unanswered Questions about Contact

(Based on Dixon, Durrheim & Tredoux, 2005)

  • While acknowledging contact literature as "one of the most successful ideas in the history of social psychology," several criticisms exist regarding its applicability.

1. Are the Conditions for Contact Too Many?

  • Criticism: Much research has focused on ideal contact conditions, leading to an increasing list beyond Allport's original four.
    • Stephan (1987) metaphor: Intergroup contact resembles "a bag lady who is so encumbered by excess baggage she can hardly move" (p. 17).
    • Additional Conditions Identified: Regular and frequent contact, across varied social settings, with a counter-stereotypic member, free of anxiety, balanced ratio of ingroup and outgroup members.
    • Problem: This profusion makes designing "optimal" contact difficult and suggests a lack of agreement on a simple ⁄ parsimonious theory of why contact works.
      • Currently, several competing and complex theories involve various emotional and cognitive variables (e.g., Brown, 1995; Dovidio, Gaertner & Kawakami, 2003; Kenworthy et al., 2005; Pettigrew, 1998).
  • Defense/Recent Developments:
    • The growth in conditions has slowed/reversed; Pettigrew and Tropp's (2006) meta-analysis focused on Allport's four as a package.
    • Mediating Processes (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008):
      1. Increased Empathy and Perspective-Taking: Contact increases willingness to empathize with outgroup members (e.g., Aberson & Haag, 2007).
      2. Reduced Intergroup Anxiety: Especially anxiety about contact itself (e.g., Blascovich et al., 2001; Stephan, Stephan & Gudykunst, 1999).
      • These emotional changes are the main mediators.
      1. Increased Knowledge of the Outgroup: Contributes to prejudice reduction, but to a lesser extent than emotional changes.

2. Are the Optimal Conditions for Contact Realistic?

  • Criticism: Most studies involve carefully engineered, experimental contact situations, which may not reflect real-life, uncontrolled contact.
    • Real-life contact (e.g., living in proximity, sharing public spaces) offers no guarantee of "good quality" contact.
    • Negative Contact: Although less frequent than positive contact, negative contact is more potent (Barlow et al., 2012; Meleady, Seger & Vermue, 2017).
  • Caution against Generalization:
    • Experimental findings from controlled settings should not be automatically generalized to everyday real-life settings.
    • Experiments model interventions (classrooms, community halls) well, but not everyday contact in playgrounds, streets, etc.
    • Findings do not automatically justify desegregation policies in housing or education, though other reasons for such policies may exist (Brewer & Miller, 1984).
  • Real-Life Observations Demonstrating Challenges:
    • South African Beach Study (Dixon & Durrheim, 2003): In post-apartheid South Africa, a desegregated beach showed racial clustering, rare direct interaction, construction of "racially exclusive territories" with sun umbrellas, and temporal segregation (White people tending to leave when many Black holidaymakers arrived).
    • Black Shoppers in USA (Lee, 2003): Black shoppers in predominantly White neighborhoods reported feeling watched and distrusted, leading to avoidance or impression management (e.g., wearing expensive clothes to counter stereotypes of being poor/criminal).
  • Conclusion: Lived experience of shared physical spaces doesn't always include actual interaction as in designed interventions. A key challenge is to understand and improve the quality of naturally occurring contact.
    • Suggests greater dialogue between contact theorists and other disciplines, such as environmental psychologists (impact of physical environments) and political psychologists (effect of political environment).

3. There is More to Life Than Prejudice, and More to Intergroup Relations Than Prejudice Reduction

  • Criticism: The vast majority of research on contact focuses on individual prejudice reduction, which, while important, does not cover all aspects of intergroup relations.
  • Potential Downsides Not Captured by Prejudice Reduction Focus:
    • Increased everyday contact also brings opportunities for aggression, disrespect, suspicion, and fear (Amir, 1965).
    • Heightened Perceptions of Threat (Forbes, 1997, 2004): Increased contact in everyday life may lead to a net increase in threat and negative feelings across the group overall, as individuals in contact may reduce prejudice, but the wider community, seeing more outgroup members without contact, may feel threatened.
    • "Irony of Harmony" (Saguy, Tausch, Dovidio & Pratto, 2009):
      • High-quality contact (positive, common-ground focus) can breed unrealistic optimism among disadvantaged minority group members regarding fair treatment from the majority group.
      • Study 1 (Minimal Groups): After high-quality contact, disadvantaged groups expected significantly more rewards from advantaged groups than they actually received ( ext{Expected rewards}_ ext{high-quality contact} acksimeq 4.7 ext{ credits, Received rewards}_ ext{high-quality contact} acksimeq 3.1 ext{ credits}; compared to low-quality contact where expected and received were lower and closer, $ ext{Expected rewards}_ ext{low-quality contact} acksimeq 3.3 ext{ credits, Received rewards}_ ext{low-quality contact} acksimeq 3 ext{ credits}$$).
      • Study 2 (Israeli Arabs/Jews): Arabs with more Jewish friends/acquaintances expressed less prejudice and greater trust in fair treatment from Jews. However, this expectation of just treatment led them to express lower support for social changes that might lead to more equal relations in Israel.
      • Implication: Contact can reduce prejudice, but concurrently have other effects that hamper attempts to achieve actual intergroup equality. Equating intergroup improvements solely with prejudice reduction is a danger (Tropp & Mallett, 2011).
    • Addressing the "Irony of Harmony": Becker et al. (2013) found disadvantaged group members' intentions to take collective action were reduced by positive contact unless advantaged group members acknowledged their advantages were unfair.

Categorization-Based Approaches

  • Building on Allport's (1954b) pioneering work, social psychologists recognize that the human tendency to categorize oneself and others is a vital precondition for stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Even minimal categorization can trigger these processes (as discussed in Chapter 11).