Intergroup Interactions Research Articles

Neighbors, Pros and Cons: Impact of Intergroup Interactions on the Welfare of Captive Chimpanzee Groups (Pan troglodytes)

Housing different animal groups in close-by facilities is common in wildlife centers. However, the impact on animal welfare is insufficiently studied in the literature. In this study, we analyzed the behavior of two adjacently housed chimpanzee groups to investigate how intergroup interactions may affect their behavior and, thus, their welfare. We recorded occurrences of abnormal and self-directed behaviors, two well-known indicators of stress in chimpanzees. Furthermore, we explored the social responses to said intergroup interactions by recording all inter- and intragroup affiliative and agonistic behaviors. Finally, we measured the number of vigilance occurrences that individuals directed towards other chimpanzees as an indicator of interest. Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) were used to assess whether and how social interactions between neighboring groups might influence their behaviors, taking gender, age, group, and intergroup participation into account. Our results suggest that intergroup interactions promoted the occurrence of affiliative behaviors between group members. However, intergroup interactions caused the chimpanzees to exhibit a higher number of abnormal and self-directed behaviors and increased vigilance towards their group members when agonistic intergroup interactions occurred. Thus, adjacent housing does impact the chimpanzees’ behavior and welfare and should be continuously monitored and assessed to promote and maximize welfare.

The effects of positive and negative intergroup contact in virtual reality on outgroup attitudes: Testing the contact hypothesis and its mediators

Virtual reality (VR) expands the opportunities for meaningful intergroup contact, surpassing the perceived naturalism and emotional salience of other online contact experiences. By embodying an avatar of ingroup characteristics, one can interact with outgroup members in a shared virtual space while maintaining a high sense of body ownership and copresence. Two studies conducted in Finland ( N = 53) and Italy ( N = 134) assessed the impact of intergroup contact in VR on implicit and explicit attitudes towards Black people. Utilizing the VR app AltspaceVR, participants were immersed in a virtual environment as White avatars to play an interactive game with another player represented as a Black (intergroup contact) or White avatar (intragroup contact). In Study 1, the avatars played the game as a team to win against other teams. The participants’ attitudes were assessed both pre- and postcontact using questionnaires and the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to either cooperate (play as a team) or compete (play against each other) in the game. The IAT and explicit attitudes were measured postcontact. The findings from both studies revealed that cooperative contact with a Black avatar led to improved attitudes towards Black people. While Study 1 demonstrated an improvement in explicit attitudes, Study 2 demonstrated positive effects of contact at the implicit level exclusively. Additionally, the positive impact of contact on implicit attitudes was observed following cooperative, rather than competitive, intergroup interactions.

Ingroup religious identification and attitude towards intergroup interaction among Muslim youth of the North Caucasus

The article presents the results of the analysis of the relationship between the intensity of ingroup religious identification and the willingness to defend and protect the interests of one’s religious community. The study was conducted on a sample of Muslim youth from the North Caucasus in winter 2023. The total number of 180 participants, representing various ethnic groups of the North Caucasus, consisted of 109 females and 71 males. The author used the scale of willingness to defend the group’s interests (Swann, Gómez) to study the attitudes towards intergroup interaction. The intensity of social religious identity was examined by the methodology for measuring ingroup religious identification (Leach, van Zomeren, adapted by E.R. Agadullina, A.V. Lovakov). The results of the correlation analysis confirmed the hypothesis that the stronger the ingroup religious identity manifested in a young Muslim from the North Caucasus, the more inclined he would be to defend his religion and protect the interests of the religious community in intergroup interactions.

Inter-group interaction and attitudes to migrants

Inter-group interaction and attitudes to migrants

Exploring the future: introduction of a new paradigm to examine intergroup experiences

Intergroup contact theory, as one of the most established research strands in social psychology, has mostly relied on overall measured averages of intergroup contact over larger time spans. Yet, in everyday life, intergroup contact experiences are far more complex: they are sequential and cumulative and may vary on a range of dimensions, such as, for example, their perceived valence. In this article, I introduce a new experimental paradigm, primarily developed as a research manipulation, to examine intergroup contact, manipulated on the unit of single interactions in a video-game setting, which can also be run from a web server, so that participants can join from their home computers. Depending on experimental condition, in a first study, participants rated the perceived quality of multiple positive or negative intergroup interactions with an alien species and intergroup attitudes in a storytelling questionnaire setting (Pilot Study, N = 242). Study 1 implemented these positive and negative interactions in a video game, which was played in the laboratory (N = 44), and examined their effects on the perceived contact quality and intergroup attitudes. Study 2 (N = 64) utilized a web-based version of the video game to test the effects on intergroup attitudes. In all three studies participants in the positive condition evaluated the interactions, as well as the overall outgroup, more positive than participants in the negative condition. Furthermore, Study 1 and 2 explored participants' perception of the virtual environment and previous experiences with video games. The results suggest that specifically developed video games offer new pathways to study intergroup interactions.

How can previous intergroup contact predict willingness for intergroup interaction? The mediating role of specific intergroup emotions

AbstractPrior research recognizes intergroup emotions as crucial for intergroup attitudes and interactions, but the psychological mechanisms linking prior intergroup interactions to contact intentions remain incompletely understood. This study investigated the joint effects and interplay of Chinese students' positive and negative contact on behavioural intentions to interact with international students in the future. Six affective variables (fear, anger, anxiety, empathy, happiness, and trust) were tested as mediators. Results revealed that positive contact directly predicted stronger contact willingness and indirectly affected this variable through lower levels of fear, anger, and anxiety and higher levels of empathy, happiness, and trust. Negative contact, however, was negatively associated with positive emotions and contact willingness and predicted more negative emotions. All intergroup emotions played significant mediating roles in the relationship between intergroup contact and willingness for future contact, and anxiety, fear, and trust emerged as robust mediators. Notably, positive contact had larger effects as compared to negative contact. Moreover, no association was observed between negative contact and intergroup emotions when positive contact was frequent. However, when both positive and negative contact were at higher levels, positive contact emerged as a more influential predictor of all intergroup emotions. This research emphasizes examining both positive and negative contact and affective variables as contact mediators, shedding light on enhancing contact intentions.

Application of the integrated threat theory to conservation law enforcement.

Interactions between law enforcement agents in conservation (e.g., rangers) and illegal resource users (e.g., illegal hunters) can be violent and sometimes fatal, which negatively affects conservation efforts and people's well-being. Models from social psychology, such as integrated threat theory (ITT) (intergroup interactions shape intergroup emotions, prejudices and perceived threats leading to hostile attitudes or behaviors between groups), are useful in addressing such interactions. Conservation approaches relying mainly on law enforcement have never been investigated using this framework. Using a structured questionnaire, we collected data from 282 rangers in protected and unprotected areas (n=50) in northern Iran. We applied Bayesian structural equation modeling in an assessment of rangers' affective attitudes (i.e., emotions or feelings that shape attitudes toward a person or object) toward illegal hunters in an ITT framework. Rangers' positive perceptions of illegal hunters were negatively associated with intergroup anxiety (emotional response to fear) and negative stereotypes about a hunter's personality, which mediated the relationship between negative contact and affective attitudes. This suggests that negative contact, such as verbal abuse, may lead rangers to perceive illegal hunters as arrogant or cruel, which likely forms a basis for perceived threats. Rangers' positive contact with illegal hunters, such as playing or working together, likely lowered their perceived realistic threats (i.e., fear of property damage). Perceived realistic threats of rangers were positively associated with negative contacts (e.g., physical harm). The associations we identified suggest that relationships based on positive interactions between rangers and illegal hunters can reduce fear and prejudice. Thus, we suggest that rangers and hunters be provided with safe spaces to have positive interactions, which may help lower tension and develop cooperative conservation mechanisms.

The power of words and voices: The role of direct and vicarious contact (text vs. audio modalities) in reducing anti-Chinese prejudice

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated anti-Chinese sentiments, demonstrating an urgent need for effective prejudice reduction interventions. Study 1 tested the relationship between contact and prejudice and its mediators toward Chinese people in Australia ( N = 362). As predicted, positive contact was significantly associated with less prejudice and, reliably, intergroup anxiety had the strongest mediation effect in this relationship. In Study 2, European Australians ( N = 161) were randomly assigned to an intergroup or intragroup (control) contact interaction, delivered vicariously via audio or text. As hypothesized, vicarious intergroup contact significantly reduced prejudice and negative emotions toward Chinese people. Moreover, text-based vicarious contact led to significantly lower intergroup anxiety and negative intergroup emotions than audio-based contact. No interaction effects of vicarious contact and delivery mode were found. Overall, these studies support direct and vicarious text-based contact as effective strategies for reducing prejudice in a global crisis and improving attitudes toward Chinese people.

Beyond normative and non-normative: A systematic review on predictors of confrontational collective action.

This paper critically examines the normative versus non-normative distinction commonly used in collective action research. To explore the similarities and differences between antecedents of normative versus non-normative actions, we conducted a systematic review on diverse predictors of non-normative, radical and violent collective actions. We examined 37 social and political psychology studies published after 2010 and identified five recurring themes: identity, efficacy, injustice, emotions and norms. Findings exhibited significant overlaps with those predictors associated with normative collective action. Thus, a reconceptualization is needed to undermine the rigid boundaries between these action types, highlighting the intricate interplay of factors that transcend the conventional binary. Aiming to avoid conceptual ambiguity and challenge the perspective that associating particular collective actions with unwarranted violence using social norms as fixed and a priori, we propose the term 'confrontational collective action' to separate out form of action from societal approval. Through this reconceptualization, we discussed the main limitations in the literature, focusing on how studies approach normativity and efficacy and addressing the issue of decontextualization in the literature. This paper calls for a contextually informed understanding of confrontational collective action that recognizes what is seen as 'normative' can change over time through intra- and intergroup interactions.

Stone point variability reveals spatial, chronological and environmental structuring of eastern African Middle Stone Age populations

ABSTRACT Stone points are one of the key features used to define the African Middle Stone Age (MSA). Regional patterns in their shape and size through time have been thought to reflect inter-group interactions and networks of populations and are used to define cultural phases within the MSA. However, eastern Africa does not have distinctive and widely applied chrono-stratigraphic point variants that divide its MSA record, which is often described as being highly variable. This paper presents a metric and geometric morphometric analysis of eastern African MSA points and evaluates potential drivers of variation in them in relation to null models of isolation by distance, time and environment. Approximately half of the shape variance in our sample can be explained by spatial, temporal and environmental differences, as well as by size, indicating a degree of demographic continuity through sustained cultural transmission. A portion of the remaining variance likely represents stylistic differences between assemblages, which are often the subject of interest in archaeological studies. The highly variable nature of the eastern African MSA may reflect the region’s refugial positioning within the continent, with point technology a flexible adaptive system that was dynamically employed across Africa during the MSA depending on varying social and ecological contexts, resulting in the appearance of both ‘generic’ and ‘specific’ tool forms at particular times and places.

A game of raids: Expanding on a game theoretical approach utilising the prisoner's dilemma and ethnography in situ.

In this commentary, we set out the specifics of how Glowacki's game theoretical framework for the evolution of peace could be incorporated within broader cultural evolutionary approaches. We outline a formal proposal for prisoner's dilemma games investigating raid-based conflict. We also centre an ethnographic lens to understand the norms surrounding war and peace in intergroup interactions in small-scale communities.

Prosociality Beyond In-Group Boundaries: A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment on Selection and Intergroup Interactions in a Multiethnic European Metropolis

Prosociality Beyond In-Group Boundaries: A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment on Selection and Intergroup Interactions in a Multiethnic European Metropolis

Evolution, culture, and the possibility of peace.

Glowacki's work meshes well with our view of human nature as having evolved to use culture to improve survival and reproduction. Peace is a cultural achievement, requiring advances in social organization and control, including leaders who can implement policies to benefit the group, third-party mediation, and intergroup cooperation. Cultural advances shift intergroup interactions from negative-sum (war) to positive-sum (trade).

Group-structured cultural selection can explain both war and peace.

Glowacki recognizes the importance of norms in enabling war and peace, but does not focus on the cultural evolutionary mechanisms by which these norms are maintained. We highlight how group-structured cultural selection shapes the scale and nature of peaceful intergroup interactions. The mechanistic perspective reveals that there are many more cases of peaceful intergroup relations than the current account implies.

A Mediation Model of the Usability and Intergroup Relation for Online Project Management Community Effectiveness with Microsoft Teams

Effective international project team development and management is a crucial aspect of project management that directly influences the performance and satisfaction of team members. As reductions in travel and physical mobility are prioritized for sustainability efforts, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, it is of paramount importance to identify and share effective innovative remote, online project management practices. The purpose of this study is to address the scarcity of related research and investigate the impact of Microsoft (MS) Teams usability on team management effectiveness as mediated by intergroup relation. The population of this study includes university personnel that have participated in the Erasmus+ project Benefit, with a sample size of 52 respondents. The data was analyzed using SmartPLS 4.0. The findings revealed that the usability of MS Teams had a direct, positive, and substantial influence on intergroup interactions and team performance. Further intergroup relations have a direct and significant impact on team effectiveness. The findings of the mediation study indicated that the association between MS Teams usability and team effectiveness is partially mediated by intergroup interactions.

Effect of behavioral changes on epidemic spreading in coupled simplicial activity driven networks

Despite intensive studies on the epidemic spreading problem in social networks, both intra-group and inter-group interactions are represented as dyadic links. In this study, using coupled simplicial activity driven networks, we examine the impact of behavioral modification on epidemic propagation while taking into account various intra-group and inter-group interactions. The intra-group interactions are represented as simplicial structures, while the inter-group connections are represented as pairwise links. Two distinct types of behavioral changes are considered: (i) infected individuals decrease their activity due to self-quarantine, (ii) susceptible individuals limit their contacts due to self-protection. Numerical simulation and theoretical analysis reveal that both self-quarantine and self-protection behavior can effectively suppress epidemic spreading, leading to increased thresholds of epidemics and reduced steady-state fractions of infected individuals. Increasing the simplex size will lead to less protective effect of these behavioral changes, while enhancing pairwise connections between groups will not decrease the effect of behavioral changes.

Need Fulfillment During Intergroup Contact: Three Experience Sampling Studies.

One challenge of modern intergroup contact research has been the question of when and why an interaction is perceived as positive and improves intergroup relations. We propose to consider the perceived fulfillment of the situationally most relevant need. We conducted three intensive longitudinal studies with recent migrants to capture their interactions with the majority out-group (Nmeasurements = 10,297; Nparticipants = 207). The situational need fulfillment mechanism is consistently a strong predictor of perceived interaction quality and positive out-group attitudes following intergroup interactions. The model is specific to out-group contact, robust to various need types, and works at least as well as Allport's contact conditions. As one of the first studies to test intergroup contact theory using intensive longitudinal data, we offer insight into the mechanisms of positive intergroup contact during real-life interactions and find situational motivations to be a key building block for understanding and addressing positive intergroup interactions.Public significance statement: In this article, we provide evidence that the fulfillment of situational needs during real-life intergroup contacts meaningfully predicts perceived interaction quality and positive outgroup attitudes. Methodologically, this offers a testament to the emerging practice of capturing real-life interactions using intensive longitudinal data. Theoretically, our results give weight to motivational fulfillment as a flexible and effective mechanism for understanding positive intergroup contact.

Taking a look in the virtual mirror: Implications of self-observation by White individuals during online intergroup exchanges for their own and their racialized partners’ experience

Concerns about being viewed negatively by outgroup members can have harmful implications for intergroup interaction. In line with the information search model, research suggests that trying to empathize with outgroup partners—by virtue of still involving taking outgroup members’ perspective—can lead right back to evaluative concerns. The present experiment (276 dyads) tested the model’s further prediction that—by virtue of still involving a focus on the self—stimuli that typically instantiate private self-awareness and prompt enhanced self-regulation also lead right back to evaluative concerns and their disruptive effects in interaction settings. Higher and lower prejudice White individuals (HPs and LPs) turned their self-view on or off during an online exchange with a partner with a marginalized racial background. Although there were some exceptions, results were generally consistent with predictions: Racialized individuals benefitted when HPs engaged in self-observation, but everyone was better off if LPs could not watch themselves.

Elevated markers of early fibrinolysis disorder as predictors of poor 90-day prognosis in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: A large prospective cohort study

ObjectivesEarly fibrinolysis disorder exists in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). We aimed to investigate the association of markers of early fibrinolysis disorder with poor 90-day prognosis in patients with aSAH. Materials and MethodsA total of 693 consecutive aSAH patients from April 2020 to December 2022 were selected from the Long-term Prognosis of Emergency Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage (LongTEAM) trial. Poor 90-day prognosis was defined as a modified Rankin Scale 3-6 at 90 days after discharge. D-dimer (DD) and Fibrin degradation product (FDP) levels on admission were used to assess fibrinolysis disorder and patients were classified according to their quartiles. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to determine the association. ResultsOf 693 patients included, 131 (18.9%) had poor 90-day prognosis. Patients in the highest quartile of DD and FDP levels had higher risk of poor 90-day prognosis than those in the first quartile (DD: adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=2.22, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.13-4.36, p = 0.021; FDP: aOR=2.87, 95% CI, 1.48-5.58, p = 0.002), after adjusting for potential risk factors. Meanwhile, a linear dose-response relationship between DD and FDP and poor 90-day prognosis was found. Subgroup analysis showed that DD and FDP were consistently associated with poor 90-day prognosis across subgroups, and no intergroup interaction was found. Interestingly, the associations of DD and FDP with poor 90-day prognosis were more significant in low-grade aSAH patients. ConclusionsElevated markers of early fibrinolysis disorder, including DD and FDP on admission, were associated with poor 90-day prognosis in aSAH patients.

How do others think about my group? Adolescents’ meta-stereotypes about Turkish- and German-origin students’ subject-related German and general school competence

AbstractIn Germany, Turkish-origin students face negative competence-related stereotypes held by different groups in society, including teachers at school. While a large body of research has examined stereotypes (i.e., other-stereotypes) about immigrant students, little is known about their own competence-related meta-stereotypes, i.e., beliefs regarding the other-stereotypes that outgroup peers hold about them. The present study addresses this research gap by examining Turkish- and German-origin students’ meta-stereotypes about two dimensions of competencies not yet investigated, namely Turkish- and German-origin students’ subject-related German competence as well as their general school competence using a newly developed instrument combining verbal and non-verbal measures. These assessments are juxtaposed to the evaluations of a group of peers with other immigrant backgrounds (i.e., others’ meta-stereotypes). In line with previous evidence, we found positive meta-stereotypes (as well as other- and others’ meta-stereotypes) towards German-origin students reported by all three groups. However, our study is the first that supports the existence of negative meta-stereotypes (as well as other- and others’ meta-stereotypes) towards Turkish-origin adolescents, again, among all participants. This pattern was particularly pronounced regarding the dimension of subject-related German competence. We discuss the findings’ potential relevance for students’ self-concepts and intergroup interactions in classrooms.