Intragroup Contact Research Articles

International students’ acculturation in host countries: A typology of intergroup and intragroup contact

International students conduct academic, economic, social, and cultural activities and interact with host communities within and beyond university settings. We explore how these activities shape the acculturation outcomes of Sri Lankan postgraduate students in Japan. We employed intergroup (and intragroup) contact and acculturation theories as our theoretical foundation. Using open-ended semi-structured questions, we interviewed 20 students and analysed interview transcripts using thematic coding techniques. Our findings indicate that different types of intergroup and intragroup activities result in different acculturation outcomes. Regular and formal intergroup activities between Sri Lankan students and the Japanese host community result in cultural co-existence, while irregular and formal intergroup activities result in enculturation. Similarly, regular and informal intergroup activities result in integration, while irregular and informal intergroup activities result in socialisation. The formal and informal intragroup activities between the Sri Lankan students and Sri Lankan immigrants in Japan facilitate their socialisation to the host culture and their resocialisation to ethnic and academic cultures in the host community. These activities contribute to ethnic and cultural maintenance. Synthesising these findings, we contribute by developing a typology of intergroup and intragroup contact for international students’ host country acculturation.

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.

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.

Marginalized, but not demobilized: Ethnic minority protest activity when facing discrimination.

In a context of backlash against diversity in many countries, we know little about how ethnic minorities respond politically when they personally experience discrimination. Moving beyond the study of electoral participation, this research investigates whether experiences of discrimination push ethnic minorities toward an alternate political pathway for those who feel sidelined by the political community: protest activity. The study also examines whether the context of discrimination (i.e. public or private sphere) has different consequences for protest participation, and whether intragroup contact enhances the effects of discrimination on protest participation. Relying on a survey of 1647 respondents from racialized backgrounds in Canada, our findings indicate that discriminatory experiences increase participation in protest activities irrespective of its context, and that the positive relationship between discriminatory experiences and protest activity is stronger among respondents with greater intragroup contact.

Residential concentration and political engagement among racialized Canadians: The moderating role of intragroup contact

Does living in communities with others from the same racialized minority background help or hinder political engagement? What role does social interaction with members of the same racialized minority group (intragroup contact) play? This paper addresses these questions with a systematic empirical investigation of political engagement in a large sample of racialized Canadians. Prior research assumes greater residential concentration of racialized group members leads to intragroup contact, but there is disagreement about whether the consequence is higher or lower levels of political engagement among members of racialized minority groups. We find no evidence that the residential concentration of Canadians from racialized groups has any independent effect on the political attitudes of racialized Canadians from the same groups. However, there is strong evidence of a more complex, conditional dynamic: if racialized minorities exhibit substantial intragroup social ties, then higher local concentrations of people from the same racial background leads to greater levels of political engagement among racialized minorities; however, if racialized minorities exhibit weak intragroup social ties, then higher local concentrations of people from the same racial background results in lower levels of political engagement among racialized minorities. Moreover, we find that, in part, this dynamic may be an indirect consequence of the ways in which non-racialized populations respond to local racial diversity. The findings may help to account for the incongruent results of previous studies of the effects of residential concentration on the political engagement of members of racialized minority groups.

Intragroup contact with other mothers living in the same neighborhood benefits mothers' life satisfaction: The mediating role of group identification and social support.

Becoming a mother is often accompanied by a loss of social connections, which can reduce the availability of social support. This can increase maternal stress with negative health outcomes. Therefore, we examined how mothers' social contact with other mothers living in the same neighborhood can form a compensative source of social support and wellbeing. Data was collected from mothers (N = 443) of a child under school age while visiting the public maternity and child health clinics located in two neighborhoods in Helsinki, Finland. We found that mothers' frequent and positive contact with other local mothers was positively related with their life satisfaction through identification-based social support. Contact also had a specific indirect effect on life satisfaction through social support. Frequent positive contact with other local mothers can serve to scaffold the emergence of social identification, which in turn unlocks further social support with positive health effects.

Brain Activation During Video Game Watching: An fMRI Study

The effects of virtual cooperative video games have not yet been explored within the setting of hostile intergroup contexts; nor have they been tested among school-aged children. We present results from a longitudinal school-based intervention that enabled virtual contact between Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli children. The program included six virtual and two face-to-face sessions. We find that relative to an intragroup contact control group, children who participated in the intergroup program showed reduced intergroup bias on both cognitive and emotional indicators, including reduced stereotypical views, negative emotions and discriminatory tendencies toward members of the other ethnic group, as well as increased willingness to engage in social contact with outgroup members. These effects were long lasting and preserved six months after termination of the program. The intervention's effectiveness was consistent across measures, gender, and ethnic groups. Thus, the program we developed offers a feasible, relatively cost-effective gaming intervention that can be applied even in areas characterized by severe ethnic tension and hostile conflict.

Gaming for peace: Virtual contact through cooperative video gaming increases children's intergroup tolerance in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

The effects of virtual cooperative video games have not yet been explored within the setting of hostile intergroup contexts; nor have they been tested among school-aged children. We present results from a longitudinal school-based intervention that enabled virtual contact between Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli children. The program included six virtual and two face-to-face sessions. We find that relative to an intragroup contact control group, children who participated in the intergroup program showed reduced intergroup bias on both cognitive and emotional indicators, including reduced stereotypical views, negative emotions and discriminatory tendencies toward members of the other ethnic group, as well as increased willingness to engage in social contact with outgroup members. These effects were long lasting and preserved six months after termination of the program. The intervention's effectiveness was consistent across measures, gender, and ethnic groups. Thus, the program we developed offers a feasible, relatively cost-effective gaming intervention that can be applied even in areas characterized by severe ethnic tension and hostile conflict.

Simulating the effect of school closure during COVID-19 outbreaks in Ontario, Canada

BackgroundThe province of Ontario, Canada, has instituted indefinite school closures (SC) as well as other social distancing measures to mitigate the impact of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We sought to evaluate the effect of SC on reducing attack rate and the need for critical care during COVID-19 outbreaks, while considering scenarios with concurrent implementation of self-isolation (SI) of symptomatic cases.MethodsWe developed an age-structured agent-based simulation model and parameterized it with the demographics of Ontario stratified by age and the latest estimates of COVID-19 epidemiologic characteristics. Disease transmission was simulated within and between different age groups by considering inter- and intra-group contact patterns. The effect of SC of varying durations on the overall attack rate, magnitude and peak time of the outbreak, and requirement for intensive care unit (ICU) admission in the population was estimated. Secondly, the effect of concurrent community-based voluntary SI of symptomatic COVID-19 cases was assessed.ResultsSC reduced attack rates in the range of 7.2–12.7% when the duration of SC increased from 3 to 16 weeks, when contacts among school children were restricted by 60–80%, and in the absence of SI by mildly symptomatic persons. Depending on the scenario, the overall reduction in ICU admissions attributed to SC throughout the outbreak ranged from 3.3 to 6.7%. When SI of mildly symptomatic persons was included and practiced by 20%, the reduction of attack rate and ICU admissions exceeded 6.3% and 9.1% (on average), respectively, in the corresponding scenarios.ConclusionOur results indicate that SC may have limited impact on reducing the burden of COVID-19 without measures to interrupt the chain of transmission during both pre-symptomatic and symptomatic stages. While highlighting the importance of SI, our findings indicate the need for better understanding of the epidemiologic characteristics of emerging diseases on the effectiveness of social distancing measures.

Does social mix reduce stigma in public housing? A comparative analysis of two housing estates in Melbourne

In Australia and many other countries of the Global North, public housing estates are being dismantled and redeveloped to create mixed-income communities. Proponents of redevelopment argue that the introduction of private housing will reduce public housing residents' experiences of stigma. In this paper, we interrogate these assumptions by identifying the degree of stigma directed at the social housing system, the characteristics of those most likely to stigmatise, the impact of proximity to public housing estates on stigmatisation and the words used to describe social housing. Our empirical strategy relies on a multi-dimensional social housing stigma scale, cross-sectional ordinary-least-square regression analysis and a qualitative analysis of respondents' association with the term public housing. We find that a higher level of stigma is correlated with private residents, older respondents, lower incomes and those that have lived in their current neighbourhoods for longer. Drawing on social contact theory, we investigate contact with public housing residents as a predictor of stigmatisation. We find that intra-group contact, positive interactions between social and private residents and proximity to Kensington Estate, a mixed-tenure development, contribute to lower stigmatisation.

Imagined Intergroup Physical Contact Improves Attitudes Toward Immigrants.

In this set of research, we investigated the effects of intergroup physical contact on intergroup attitudes by relying on indirect contact strategies, namely the imagined contact paradigm. We implemented the imagined contact paradigm by leading participants to shape the mental imagery upon pictorial information. Specifically, in Study 1 participants saw a picture of a white hand touching a black hand [i.e., intergroup physical contact condition (InterPC)] or a picture of an outdoor scene (i.e., control condition), and were asked to imagine being either the toucher or in the outdoor scene, respectively. Results demonstrated that InterPC compared to control condition reduced intergroup bias. In Study 2 we compared the InterPC condition to a condition in which participants saw a white hand touching another white hand [i.e., intragroup physical contact (IntraPC)], and imagined to be the toucher. Again, we found that participants in the InterPC condition showed reduced intergroup bias compared to the IntraPC. Study 3 replicated results of Studies 1 and 2 by using an implicit measure of prejudice. Also, Study 3 further showed that asking participants to merely look at the picture of a white hand touching a black hand, without imagining being the toucher was not effective in reducing implicit prejudice. Results were discussed with respect to the literature on physical contact and prejudice reduction processes.

Classification of producer characteristics in primate long calls using neural networks

Primate long calls are high-amplitude vocalizations that can be critical in maintaining intragroup contact and intergroup spacing, and can encode abundant information about a call's producer, such as age, sex, and individual identity. Long calls of the wild emperor (Saguinus imperator) and saddleback (Leontocebus weddelli) tamarins were tested for these identity signals using artificial neural networks, machine-learning models that reduce subjectivity in vocalization classification. To assess whether modelling could be streamlined by using only factors which were responsible for the majority of variation within networks, each series of networks was re-trained after implementing two methods of feature selection. First, networks were trained and run using only the subset of variables whose weights accounted for ≥50% of each original network's variation, as identified by the networks themselves. In the second, only variables implemented by decision trees in predicting outcomes were used. Networks predicted dependent variables above chance (≥58.7% for sex, ≥69.2 for age class, and ≥38.8% for seven to eight individuals), but classification accuracy was not markedly improved by feature selection. Findings are discussed with regard to implications for future studies on identity signaling in vocalizations and streamlining of data analysis.

Parental Cultural Socialization and Adolescent Private Regard: Exploring Mediating Pathways Through Daily Experiences.

Using longitudinal experience sampling data from 214 ethnic/racial minority adolescents (Wave 1 Mage =15.24), the present study investigated how the longitudinal effect of parental cultural socialization on adolescent private regard was mediated through various daily pathways and novel constructs. Both the mean levels and variability of adolescents' ethnic feelings (i.e., private regard) and social interactions (i.e., intragroup contact) in daily situations, as well as the situational association between intragroup contact and private regard, emerged as mediators. Greater cultural socialization promoted greater and more stable ethnic feelings and interactions, as well as their situational association, all of which promoted private regard over time. This study provides a framework to explore how development occurs in daily lives.

The role of adoptive parents’ intergroup contact in fostering the well-being of adoptees: The “extended intragroup contact effect”

The present study examines the effects of a new cultural socialization strategy on the well-being of transracially adopted adolescents and emerging adults. Specifically, we propose a novel strategy focused on the role of adoptive parents’ positive contact with members of their children’s ethnic group of origin, which we labelled “extended intragroup contact.” The hypothesis was that observing ingroup members (adoptive parents, belonging to the family ingroup) engaging in contact with another ingroup (members of children’s original ethnic group) would be associated with adoptees’ meaning in life and, in turn, with well-being. A self-report questionnaire was administered to 120 families, each composed of transracial adoptees (all born in Latin American countries) and their adoptive parents. The results were generally supportive of predictions, showing that knowing of positive interactions between members of two different ingroups (family ingroup and ethnic ingroup) had beneficial effects for the well-being of transracial adoptees. The theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed, focusing on the importance of investigating extended intragroup contact as a strategy for improving the well-being of disadvantaged group members.

Intergroup Relations in Latin America: Intergroup Contact, Common Ingroup Identity, and Activism among Indigenous Groups in Mexico and Chile

In two correlational studies in Mexico (Study 1: N = 152, Mexican Indigenous people) and Chile (Study 2: N = 185, Chilean Indigenous people, Mapuche), we investigated how different dimensions of common ingroup identity (CII) and intergroup contact between Indigenous people influence activist tendencies and how past participation moderates this influence. In Study 1, CII as Mexican and intragroup contact between Indigenous people predicted activist tendencies via increased group efficacy. In Study 2, CII as Chilean positively predicted normative activism both directly and via group efficacy. In both studies intragroup contact between Indigenous people directly and positively predicted future intentions to engage in political action and past activism moderated these associations. These findings suggest that the negative effects of CII on activism do not readily map onto contexts where subgroup and CII overlap, and contact might have beneficial effects on activism. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.

Song Functions in Nonduetting Gibbons: Evidence from Playback Experiments on Javan Gibbons (Hylobates moloch)

Territorial, pair-living primates usually perform long-distance calls as duets in which adult males and females coordinate their calls. Previous studies using playback experiments have shown that gibbon duets convey information about the status of the caller (location, familiarity, sex of the caller, and paired status) and gibbons use this information to respond to achieve several nonmutually exclusive functions, including intragroup contact, territorial defense, and pair-bond advertisement and strengthening. However, not all pair-living gibbons duet, and it is unclear whether the same results should be expected in nonduetting species. We conducted song playback experiments (N = 47 trials) to test hypotheses about song functions in nonduetting gibbons on two groups of wild Javan gibbons (Hylobates moloch) in the Gunung Halimun-Salak National Park, Indonesia. Javan gibbons initiated movement toward the speaker more quickly in response to songs broadcast in the center of the territory, stranger songs, and songs of unpaired individuals than to songs at the border, neighbor songs, and songs from paired individuals. These results suggest that Javan gibbons can localize songs, and that Javan gibbon songs transmit information about the identity and paired status of the caller. Our results imply that Javan gibbon solo songs are likely to function for territorial defense and pair-bond advertisement like duets in other primates.

Early real-time estimation of the basic reproduction number of emerging or reemerging infectious diseases in a community with heterogeneous contact pattern: Using data from Hong Kong 2009 H1N1 Pandemic Influenza as an illustrative example.

Emerging and re-emerging infections such as SARS (2003) and pandemic H1N1 (2009) have caused concern for public health researchers and policy makers due to the increased burden of these diseases on health care systems. This concern has prompted the use of mathematical models to evaluate strategies to control disease spread, making these models invaluable tools to identify optimal intervention strategies. A particularly important quantity in infectious disease epidemiology is the basic reproduction number, R0. Estimation of this quantity is crucial for effective control responses in the early phase of an epidemic. In our previous study, an approach for estimating the basic reproduction number in real time was developed. This approach uses case notification data and the structure of potential transmission contacts to accurately estimate R0 from the limited amount of information available at the early stage of an outbreak. Based on this approach, we extend the existing methodology; the most recent method features intra- and inter-age groups contact heterogeneity. Given the number of newly reported cases at the early stage of the outbreak, with parsimony assumptions on removal distribution and infectivity profile of the diseases, experiments to estimate real time R0 under different levels of intra- and inter-group contact heterogeneity using two age groups are presented. We show that the new method converges more quickly to the actual value of R0 than the previous one, in particular when there is high-level intra-group and inter-group contact heterogeneity. With the age specific contact patterns, number of newly reported cases, removal distribution, and information about the natural history of the 2009 pandemic influenza in Hong Kong, we also use the extended model to estimate R0 and age-specific R0.

Comparing direct and imagined intergroup contact among children: Effects on outgroup stereotypes and helping intentions

We conducted an experimental intervention aimed at comparing the effectiveness of direct and imagined intergroup contact. Italian elementary school children took part in a three-week intervention with dependent variables assessed one week after the last intervention session. Results revealed that direct and imagined intergroup contact, compared to control conditions of direct and imagined intragroup contact, had an additive impact when it came to reducing negative stereotypes of immigrants and fostering future helping intentions toward this group. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Badger (Meles meles) contact metrics in a medium-density population

Animal interactions are an important component of sociality in wildlife populations. Recent advances in technological and analytical applications have provided an unprecedented opportunity to understand individual, population and community level interactions. In this study, close-range contact rates within a medium-density badger (Meles meles) population were investigated using proximity collars. Data were available from 15 badgers, across five different social groups with 12,969 interactions recorded. All collared badgers within social groups contacted each other, with mean intra-group contact frequency 7.75±0.16 contacts/day and mean intra-group contact duration 413.70±16.45s/day. Inter-group contacts between badgers only occurred between directly adjacent social groups, at a low frequency (<1% of all contacts). Badger intra-group contacts occurred during every hour of the day and had a bimodal distribution pattern that peaked during early morning and evening. There was significant variation in contact frequency according to individual badger, month, sex and social group, independent of age and minimum daily temperature. Mean social group contact rates were not correlated with estimates of social group size. This study contributes to the growing evidence base for significant individual behaviour components within badger social group dynamics, which has implications not only for the transmission of diseases such as bovine tuberculosis but also in terms of the evolution of sociality itself within this species.

Ethnolinguistic Identification, Vitality, and Gratifications for Television Use in a Bilingual Media Environment

This article tests a model predicting minority language television consumption. We examine how four media gratifications (diversion, ethnolinguistic identity, surveillance, parasocial companionship) mediate the relationship between ethnolinguistic identification and choice of ingroup language television viewing. The study is performed among (minority) Hungarian speakers in Transylvania, Romania. Self‐report questionnaire data from 401 Hungarian‐speaking high school students in Csíkszereda/Miercurea Ciuc (a majority Hungarian locale) and Brassó/Brașov (a minority Hungarian locale) allowed us to compare high and low local vitality conditions. Analysis indicates that diversion (entertainment) and ethnolinguistic identity gratifications for watching ingroup language television are the strongest mediators of the influence of identification on ingroup language television use. We examined four moderators of these indirect effects (objective vitality, subjective vitality, intergroup contact, and intragroup contact). The moderators revealed a number of rather complex effects which are discussed with regard to the local intergroup context and broader issues of media and intergroup relations.