Imagined intergroup contact facilitates intercultural communication for college students on academic exchange programs

Loris Vezzali,Dino Giovannini,Sofia Stathi,Richard J Crisp

doi:10.1177/1368430214527853

Abstract

Imagined intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) is a new cognitive intervention designed to improve intergroup relations. In two studies, we examined whether it could also facilitate intercultural communication among international students and host country natives engaged in a college exchange program. In Study 1, international students who had recently arrived in Italy and participated in an imagined contact session displayed increased self-disclosure toward, and improved evaluation of, host country natives. In Study 2, Italian students mentally simulated positive contact with an unknown native from the host country prior to leaving for the exchange. Results from an online questionnaire administered on their return (on average, more than 7 months after the imagery task) revealed that participants who imagined contact reported spending more time with natives during the stay and enhanced outgroup evaluation, via reduced intergroup anxiety. Implications for enhancing the quality and effectiveness of college student exchange programs are discussed.

Highlights

Imagined intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) is a new cognitive intervention designed to improve intergroup relations
Having established the basic efficacy of our simulation task for improving selfdisclosure and intergroup attitudes, in Study 2 we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention for improving intercultural communication on a cohort of international exchange students leaving for an exchange program
Our hypothesis was that imagined contact would reduce anxiety at the prospect of interacting with host country natives which, in turn, would be associated with a larger amount of time spent with the outgroup and with improved evaluation of this group

Summary

Introduction

Imagined intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) is a new cognitive intervention designed to improve intergroup relations. A practical, theoretically grounded, solution to this problem may be found in recent research developing simple, efficient and applicable cognitive interventions to the task of improving intergroup relations One such intervention is imagined intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009), which involves mentally simulating a social interaction with a member of the outgroup. International students were welcomed by the local section of the International Exchange Erasmus Student Network, a non-profit association formed by students of the local university aimed at providing opportunities for cultural integration and self-development Since this organization operates under the principle of students helping other students, it is likely that its activities foster perceptions of cooperation for mutual goals under status equality among international students. Finding that imagined contact improves intergroup attitudes over and above the effects of these institutional and informal activities would represent an important confirmation for the imagined contact theory (Crisp & Turner, 2009, 2012)

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