Social Cure Processes Help Lower Intergroup Anxiety Among Neighborhood Residents

Clifford Stevenson,Matthew J Easterbrook,Sebastiano Costa,Niamh Mcnamara,Blerina Kellezi

doi:10.1111/pops.12667

Abstract

Research in the social cure tradition shows that groups can reduce members' stress by providing support to cope with challenges, but it has yet to consider how this applies to the anxiety occasioned by outgroups. Research on intergroup contact has extensively examined how reducing intergroup anxiety improves attitudes towards outgroups, but it has yet to examine the role of intragroup support processes in facilitating this. The present article takes the case of residential contact, in which the impact of diversification upon neighborhood cohesion is hotly debated, but the role of neighborhood identification and social support from neighbors in facilitating residential mixing has been largely ignored. Our surveys of two geographically bounded communities in England (n = 310; n = 94) and one in Northern Ireland (n = 206) show that neighborhood identification predicts both well‐being and more positive feelings towards outgroups, with both effects occurring via increased intragroup support. In studies 2 and 3, we show that this positive effect on feelings towards the outgroup occurs independently of that of intergroup contact and is further explained by the effect of neighborhood support in reducing intergroup anxiety. This suggests that social cure processes can improve intergroup attitudes by supporting group members to deal with the stress of intergroup interactions.

Highlights

Research in the socialcure tradition shows that groups can reduce members' stress by providing support to cope with challenges, but it has yet to consider how this applies to the anxiety occasioned by outgroups
Extensive literature has either focused on the benefits of neighborhood identification or the negative consequences of residential contact and so the potential of intragroup dynamics to help residents cope with mixing has yet to be fully explored
In a series of survey studies, we examine the experiences of residents in three urban neighborhoods to determine first that neighborhood identification is associated with increased social support and better well-being and second that intragroup support serves to improve intergroup attitudes through reducing intergroup anxiety

Summary

Introduction

Research in the socialcure tradition shows that groups can reduce members' stress by providing support to cope with challenges, but it has yet to consider how this applies to the anxiety occasioned by outgroups. Studies indicated that job identities shape work-related stress, such that bomb-disposal experts who identified with their occupational group reported their jobs as less stressful than bar work (Haslam, O’Brien, Jetten, Vormedal, & Penna, 2005) This effect has even been shown to impact upon the experience of physical stress: gender salience was found to improve performance on a cold tolerance task under laboratory conditions (Platow et al, 2007), and the reported experiences of ingroup (but not outgroup) members on a mathematics task affected participants’ own anxiety levels in their subsequent performance on the test (Haslam et al, 2005)

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