Abstract
In recent years psychosocial studies have given a growing attention to online intergroup contact in reducing prejudice. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of evidence on processes that could mediate this relation. The present study aimed to fill this gap. Focused on intergroup relationships between people with different sexual orientations, it examined whether and to what extent identity processes—i.e., sexual identity commitment and exploration—mediated the relationship between online intergroup contact and perception of mediated and vicarious sexual online discrimination on Facebook. Data was collected with a sample of 357 Facebook users (Mage = 26.07, SD = 8.37; females: 64.9%, males: 35.1%) who completed an online questionnaire. A full Structural Equation Modeling was tested. Results showed that: (a) Online contact was positively associated with perceived online sexual discrimination; (b) online contact was positively associated with identity exploration but not commitment; (c) exploration—but not commitment—was positively associated with perceived online sexual discrimination; (d) sexual identity exploration—but not commitment—mediated the relationship between online contact and perception of sexual discrimination, increasing the positive effect of contact on perceived discrimination. Limitations and directions for future research were discussed.
Highlights
The Contact Hypothesis (Allport 1954) has been defined as one of the most successful ideas in the history of social psychology to reduce prejudice (Brown 2000)
Among variables that could be considered, identity processes, such as group identification, assumed a central and still little explored role, since the extent to which the individuals identify with his or her ingroup, appear to be the most important moderators of generalization effects (Crisp and Beck 2005). By taking up this suggestion, this study aims to analyze whether and to what extent identity processes could mediate the relationship between online contact and perception of online sexual discrimination through a sample of Italian Facebook users
The students did not receive any specific credits for their participation: they were instructed to follow an administration protocol which included: (a) Sending or posting the anonymous link to their e-mail, WhatsApp, Facebook and other social network contacts; (b) doing a recall to participate in the survey after 5 days from the first advice; (c) specifying the methods used to collect the data in terms of time, people or groups involved, channel used for sending or posting the anonymous link (e-mail, WhatsApp, etc.), and any comments and feedback received by participants
Summary
The Contact Hypothesis (Allport 1954) has been defined as one of the most successful ideas in the history of social psychology to reduce prejudice (Brown 2000). Allport defined four optimal conditions through which intergroup contact could reduce prejudice—i.e., equal status, common goals, cooperation and authorities’ support—, and the most relevant meta-analysis in the field Tropp 2000) confirmed the positive effect of contact in promoting intergroup dialogue. Given the increasing web penetration rate (e.g., InternetWorldStats.com 2020), authors (e.g., Amichai-Hamburger and Furnham 2007; White and Abu-Rayya 2012) applied contact hypothesis in the online world, aiming to understand whether and to what extent Internet could facilitate intergroup dialogue, and what specific internet features and processes could be helpful to reduce prejudice. As a recent meta-analysis showed (Imperato et al 2020), online contact moderately reduced prejudice towards an outgroup, in line with literature concerning offline contact (e.g., Pettigrew and Tropp 2006).
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