Allport's Contact Hypothesis Research Articles

Understanding the elements of a quality rural/remote interprofessional education activity: A rough guide.

To offer a rough guide to a quality rural/remote interprofessional educational activity. Australian remote and rural interprofessional undergraduate placements offered in Modified Monash Model 3-6 locations. Biggs' triple P framework from the interprofessional educational literature and Allport's contact hypothesis are used to describe map, and explore the educational dimensions and positive elements, of a quality rural/remote interprofessional educational activity. Delivery of a quality interprofessional educational activity requires attention to all dimensions of the activity with acknowledgement of the value of the remote or rural contexts. Interprofessional learning requires constructive alignment and positive contact conditions to ensure a quality and sustained experience.

Seeking and avoiding intergroup contact: Future frontiers of research on building social integration

AbstractOver 60 years of research and comprehensive reviews now support Gordon Allport's contact hypothesis that face‐to‐face interactions between members of opposing groups should be promoted to lessen prejudice and improve intergroup relations. Society however does not yet enjoy the full prejudice‐reducing benefits of intergroup contact because opportunities for contact are often not taken up, and segregation persists in the face of diversity. In this article, we review recent investigations on the social psychology of individuals' seeking and avoiding intergroup contact and set the stage for new research in this area. We call for a new generation of research on intergroup contact that addresses a novel and critical research question: What personal, situational, and wider social factors move individuals towards or away from engaging in intergroup contact? This research can help us design intervention strategies to ensure that opportunities for, and benefits of, intergroup contact are fully enjoyed by individuals and groups in increasingly diverse societies.

Coming together or remaining apart? A closer examination of the contexts of intergroup contact and friendship between urban residents and rural-to-urban migrants in China

ABSTRACT The implications of intergroup contact for the social integration of rural migrant workers have received limited scholarly attention in China. Drawing on Allport's contact hypothesis and its recent extensions, this study investigates, from the perspective of urban residents, the situational and relational contexts within which intergroup encounters occur. Using the Urban Resident Survey conducted in 2014 across thirteen cities in China, we compare contact between urbanites and migrants in two social spaces: the workplace and the residential community. We also examine whether their associations with intergroup friendships differ for urbanites with kinship ties to migrants. Our findings highlight the complexities of contact, along with its strengths and limitations in bringing diverse groups closer together. Workplace contact is positively associated with intergroup friendships, whereas residential community contact is negatively related to such ties. Furthermore, kinship relations with migrants can undermine positive contacts but do not provide a buffer for negative encounters.

Can diversity promote trust? Neighbourhood context and trust in the police in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACTThe association between trust in the police and neighbourhood context is well known. Police seem to enjoy more trust when community settings are perceived as orderly, cohesive and well-functioning, and trust seems to be lower when order and cohesion seem attenuated or under threat. Yet, little attention has been paid to the association between neighbourhood diversity and trust in the police. Allport's contact hypothesis suggests that because diversity increases intergroup contact and thus a sense of cohesion, it may promote trust in the police. We use data from a nationally representative survey conducted in 2014, combined with Census and other local-area data, to explore the association between ethno-religious diversity and trust in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. We find that trust is higher in more diverse areas, primarily because Catholics living in such areas report significantly higher levels of trust than their counterparts living in less diverse areas. We interpret these results in light of what policing means in contemporary Northern Ireland, almost two-decades after the country's landmark reform of policing began.

Friendship, attitudes, and behavioral intentions of cisgender heterosexuals toward transgender individuals

ABSTRACTLesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals have begun to gain an acceptance that transgender people have yet to achieve. Previous literature has found the significant effect of Allport's contact hypothesis on reducing negative attitudes toward LGB individuals. Attention has recently turned to the implications of social contact for reduction of transphobic attitudes, with one study demonstrating efficacy. The present study examined the relationships between cisgender heterosexual college students' social contact with transgender individuals, operationalized as number of friendships, and self-reported attitudes and behavioral intentions toward transgender individuals. A sample of 342 undergraduate students at a mid-sized public university completed questions about attitudes and behaviors toward transgender individuals and their transgender friendship experiences. In multivariate analysis of variance, significant differences between participants who reported having zero versus at least one transgender friend across negative intentions, negative attitudes, positive intentions and views, and supportive public intentions toward transgender individuals were found, supporting the contact hypothesis. These findings suggest that having friendships with transgender individuals is associated with reduced prejudice and discrimination and, moreover, greater acceptance and support of transgender people. Implications for increasing acceptance of transgender individuals are discussed.

Bridging the Gap on Facebook: Assessing Intergroup Contact and Its Effects for Intergroup Relations

In line with Allport's contact hypothesis, previous research showed that direct intergroup contact can reduce prejudices. However, establishing face-to-face contact is not always feasible. We postulate that Facebook-groups are a setting where direct and observed intergroup contact can develop, reducing prejudices and increasing mutual acceptance. Analyzing the comments of nine Facebook-groups with the destructive and constructive conflict scale, our results indicated that the expression of prejudices decreased and that of mutual acceptance increased over time, both for in- and outgroup members of the Facebook-groups. Only the expression of less prejudices, but not that of more mutual acceptance was predicted by intergroup contact. The influence of group-based motivations on the engagement in intergroup contact is discussed, and the overall findings are integrated in Steele and Brown's process model of media practices.

PeacePlayers International: A Case Study on the Use of Sport as a Tool for Conflict Transformation

Since 2001, PeacePlayers International has helped over 50,000 young people overcome deep ethnic, religious or social divides in their communities through basketball. The authors describe PPI's theory of change, which draws on Gordon Allport's Contact Hypothesis, Muzafer Sherif's notion of superordinate goals, and John Paul Lederach's arguments in favor of relational approaches to conflict transformation. PPI has identified four key program components as integral to its success: local leadership; a balance between sport and educational content in programming; maintaining frequent, long-term integration; and structures for internal leadership development. Long-term monitoring and evaluation; securing consistent, flexible funding; and coping with political change outside the control of the programs remain challenges.

Contact Reduces Transprejudice: A Study on Attitudes towards Transgenderism and Transgender Civil Rights in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between Hong Kong Chinese people's contact with transgender/transsexual (TG/TS) people and attitudes toward transgenderism and transgender civil rights, based on Allport's Contact Hypothesis. The term transprejudice is introduced to refer to the negative valuing, stereotyping and discriminatory treatment of TG/TS people. Data are presented from a population-based survey with a random sample of 856 Hong Kong Chinese persons aged between 15 and 64, using the Chinese Attitudes towards Transgenderism and Transgender Civil Rights Scale (CATTCRS). Attitudes, assessed on both personal and institutional dimensions, are examined in relation to participants’ gender, age, educational level, religiosity, and previous contact with transpeople. Results suggest that previous contact with transpeople was significantly associated with attitudes reflected in the scale; decreased social distance, decreased social discrimination, and decreased transprejudice, increased awareness of discrimination against transpeople, increased support for equal opportunities, increased support for post-operative transsexual civil rights, and increased support for anti-discrimination legislation. Our findings support the contact hypothesis, that contact has a positive effect on attitudes towards TG/TS persons. We discuss the implications of these findings for public education interventions and public policy, as well as for research.

Academic performance, prejudice, and the jigsaw classroom: new pieces to the puzzle

This field study investigated the effects of a cooperative learning environment and a Jigsaw classroom environment on academic performance, self-esteem, liking of school, liking of peers, and racial prejudice. The subjects were 103 children in Grades 4–6, in two separate schools. The cooperative learning condition was used as a baseline measure of the effects of cooperation, against which the effects of a Jigsaw method, involving both cooperation and interdependence, were compared. The results reveal that Jigsaw produced significant improvements on measures of academic performance, liking of peers, and racial prejudice. In contrast, the effect of the cooperative condition was to exacerbate pre-existing intergroup tensions. The present findings demonstrate that the Jigsaw method can be applied successfully in Australian conditions, and lend support to Allport's contact hypothesis. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Effects of Individuating Information on the Generalization Part of Allport's Contact Hypothesis

According to Gordon Allport's contact hypothesis, positive contact with a member of a negatively stereotyped group might ameliorate negative attitudes not only toward the specific member but also toward the group as a whole (generalization). In a direct empirical test of theoretical suggestions that individuating information might decrease the generalization part of the contact hypothesis, students learned material cooperatively with a "homosexual" confederate. To illustrate the material, the confederate used either impersonal or personal analogies. Students in the two conditions liked the confederate equally, but students who received personal analogies were less likely to ameliorate their attitudes toward homosexuals. The discussion addresses factors that might reduce the cognitive association between a group member and his or her group.

Previous Conceptions of the Typical Group Member and the Contact Hypothesis

Allport's (1954) contact hypothesis predicted that pleasant contact with a member of a negatively stigmatized group would change attitudes both toward the specific person interacted with (specific attitude change) and also toward the group as a whole (generalization). Many previous studies of the contact hypothesis have demonstrated specific attitude change. In previous studies that demonstrated generalization, attitude change toward the group as a whole might have occurred because participants changed their opinions about what constituted a "typical" group member. Although this postulated mechanism of attitude change is difficult to test directly, our study sought indirect support by showing that preexisting conceptions of the typical group member differ in a way that affects the extent of generalization. Students who initially conceived of the typical person with AIDS (PWA) as an abstraction displayed greater generalization following pleasant contact with a PWA than did students who initially conceived of the typical PWA as a specific person. The generalization part of Allport's contact hypothesis may thus be related to recent research on social categorization.