Outgroup Attitudes Research Articles

How does contact valence and group salience affect outgroup attitudes in asynchronous computer mediated contact? Experiments on intergroup contact via social media posts

ABSTRACT The prejudice reduction potential of face-to-face intergroup contact is widely established, but we know much less about computer-mediated intergroup contact (online contact) specifically via social media where interactions are less controlled and mostly asynchronous. Additionally, much of the work on online contact has focused on positive, controlled contact, neglecting the effect of negative contact. We examined the effects of mediated contact via online posts with differing valence (positive, negative, and neutral) in three experimental studies, in an imaginary scenario (Study 1: N = 120) and a real intergroup scenario with South and North Indians (Study 2: N = 296, Study 3: N = 336). Main effects of One way and factorial ANOVA showed that contact valence significantly affected outgroup attitudes in Study 1 & 2 but was not replicated in Study 3, where quality and quantity of past contact and status differences emerged as significant predictors of attitudes. Multiple mediation analysis revealed that intergroup anxiety and quality of contact explained changes in attitudes, which was less affected by valence and more by regional identity and history of contact. Findings are discussed in light of the possibilities and limitations of asynchronous mediated contact on social media.

Addressing epistemic violence and methodological nationalism through a meta-analytical review on intergroup contact and conflict studies in Turkey

This paper provides an examination of intergroup contact research in the context of the Turkish-Kurdish ‘conflict’ through a meta-analytical scoping review. By doing so, we discuss how dominant biases in the literature such as methodological nationalism and epistemic violence influence research practices and knowledge-production systems in conflict and contact studies conducted under colonial rule. Through a thematic investigation, we found four variables that were commonly tested in intergroup contact studies: i) attitudes towards outgroup, ii) support for minority rights or multiculturalism, iii) perception of discrimination against the minority group, and iv) ethnic identity. We conducted four meta-analyses using a pool of 28 studies conducted in Turkey to unpack the associations of intergroup contact with: i) outgroup attitudes (r = .42; n = 5,624), ii) support for minority rights and multiculturalism (r = -.06ns; n = 1,567), iii) perception of discrimination against Kurds (r = .22; n = 2,431), and iv) ethnic identity (r = -.13; n = 4,636). The results demonstrated a moderate to strong relationship between intergroup contact and positive outgroup attitudes, while the findings were less robust for support for minority rights, perception of discrimination against Kurds, and ethnic identity. Furthermore, the group status and sample characteristics of the studies moderate the relationships between variables. Based on the findings and a critical analysis of the current literature, we discuss the limitations of the existing research and critical points for future studies.

Do Positive and Negative Intergroup Contact Create Shifts in Ingroup and Outgroup Attitudes Over Time: A Three‐Wave Longitudinal Study Testing Alternative Mediation Models

ABSTRACTThe current study investigated how contact experiences may be associated with attitudes towards the ingroup and the outgroup using a three‐wave longitudinal study. We assessed Turkish native children's contact with Syrian refugees (N = 487, Mage = 10.60, SDage = 0.90) and explored relationships between initial contact and later ingroup and outgroup attitudes testing alternative mediation models. We also examined whether negative contact with outgroup members may directly or indirectly predict more positive ingroup attitudes. Findings demonstrated that positive contact was associated with both reduced ingroup positivity and increased outgroup positivity over time. However, unlike the traditionally suggested mediational pathway in contact‐deprovincialization literature, initial positive contact (T1) was associated with less positive ingroup attitudes (T3) through more positive outgroup attitudes at T2. There was no evidence for the role of negative intergroup contact on ingroup or outgroup attitudes. Findings are discussed within the broader scope of contact theory and the recently growing deprovincialization literature. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Youth Intergroup Contact and Social Cohesion Outcomes in Two Divided Societies

ABSTRACTIntergroup contact has long been established as a prejudice‐reduction tool in divided societies, with contact being particularly effective during adolescence. A large proportion of evidence, however, draws on cross‐sectional surveys or analytical approaches that do not distinguish between‐ and within‐person effects. In the present research, we address this by exploring the potential of intergroup contact longitudinally on social cohesion–related outcomes amongst youth (aged 14–19) in Belfast (Study 1, N = 231) and Bradford (Study 2, N = 159). Measures included intergroup contact, outgroup attitudes, intergroup anxiety, outgroup empathy and outgroup prosocial behaviour across three time points. Using random‐intercept cross‐lagged panel models, results demonstrate between‐person associations of contact with our outcomes, but limited within‐person changes. Our findings demonstrate the potential and limitations of intergroup contact for social cohesion–related outcomes for youth growing up in divided societies, pointing to the need for developmental‐focused future research.

From the lab to the field and back: the effects of need satisfaction on reconciliation among Germans and Israelis.

Previous lab experiments supported the needs-based model of reconciliation, which posits that discussing historical transgressions enhances the need for acceptance in groups perceived as perpetrators and empowerment in groups perceived as victims. Addressing these needs (e.g., through accepting or empowering messages from outgroup members) increases willingness to reconcile. This study tests this model in a real-world settings. Study 1 examined 143 German and Israeli Jewish participants from youth exchange programs, measuring their feelings of acceptance/empowerment, program satisfaction, outgroup attitudes, and keeping in touch with outgroup members. Study 2 examined 293 Israeli Jews, manipulating the salience of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in a pre-registered laboratory experiment and measuring responses to accepting versus empowering messages from Germans. As expected, Study 1 (N =143) found Germans' feelings of acceptance were linked to program satisfaction, positive outgroup attitudes, and keeping in touch. For Israeli Jews, feelings of empowerment were linked to satisfaction and positive attitudes, but keeping in touch was unexpectedly linked to acceptance. This unexpected effect maybe because keeping in touch is done mainly through social networks that focus on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, often with a focus on Israel's transgressions against Palestinians. Consistent with this explanation, Study 2 (N=293, pre-registered) showed that Israeli Jews viewed accepting messages from Germans as more conciliatory when presented with transgressions against Palestinians, and empowering messages as more effective when presented with reminders of historical victimization by Nazis. The findings from Study 1 partially support the needs-based model of reconciliation and additionally suggest that reconciliation needs vary with context. Implications for people-to-people peace-building interventions are discussed.

Online Contacts Supported with Recategorization Strategies: Do They Affect Outgroup Attitudes and Collective Action Intentions?

Studies on face-to-face intergroup contact demonstrate varied effects for members of advantaged and disadvantaged groups on harmonious relations and collective action intentions. This study extends the literature by examining to what extent those effects exist when the contact is online and also by examining which recategorization strategy would be more effective in producing positive outcomes for those groups. For this aim, students of the two universities—CU and ATU (higher and lower status, respectively)—in Adana, Turkey were made to contact in small groups on a text-based online platform. Participants were distributed into four-people groups—either mixed of ATU and CU students or ATU students only. Either a common ingroup identity or dual identities were made salient in the mixed groups, whereas the individual identity was made salient in the groups consisting of ATU students only. Data were collected at three time periods: Two weeks before (368 participants), immediately after (159 participants), and one month after the contact (138 participants). Concerning outgroup attitudes, irrespective of salient identities, mixed groups improved attitudes, sustained in follow-up. Regarding collective action intentions, CU students’ intentions increased (T1 to T3), while for ATU students in all groups, intentions decreased-whether cross-group contact was experienced or not.

On the spurious effect of intergroup friendship on outgroup attitudes in schools: The role of social influence and the positive impact of exposure to outgroup peers.

Promoting intergroup friendships in schools is regarded as a powerful strategy for improving outgroup attitudes. However, stochastic actor-oriented modelling (SAOM) studies have often revealed no association between intergroup friendship and outgroup attitudes. I investigated whether SAOM studies reported no effect of intergroup friendship on outgroup attitudes, what was responsible for this surprising finding and whether exposure to outgroup peers was positively related to outgroup attitudes. The meta-analysis of SAOM studies confirms no association between intergroup friendship and outgroup attitudes. Examining longitudinal social network data of 2700 German students, I found that a positive link between intergroup friendship and outgroup attitudes appeared only when I did not control for social influence. This indicates that intergroup friendship did not automatically improve outgroup attitudes. Instead, the development of outgroup attitudes among students depended on social influence and, thus, the quality of outgroup attitudes among their outgroup friends. Exposure to outgroup peers was, however, positively associated with outgroup attitudes. These findings reframe intergroup contact theory by suggesting that intergroup friendship is not essential for improving outgroup attitudes. Rather, social influence and exposure to outgroup peers could be key factors shaping outgroup attitudes.

Opportunities for contact, contact valence and outgroup attitudes: the moderating role of outgroup anger / Oportunidades de contacto, valencia de contacto y actitudes del exogrupo: el rol moderador de la ira del exogrupo

Opportunities for contact reduce prejudice via positive contact and increase it via negative contact. However, the relative importance of these routes varies considerably, and it is unclear what processes are crucial in this respect. The analysis of a sample of Romanian students ( N = 232) revealed that outgroup anger moderated both the paths from opportunities for contact to contact and from contact to positive outgroup attitudes: at low levels of anger, the positive route was dominant, whereas at higher levels of anger, the negative route reduced the positive effects. These results underline an important connection between the waning and waxing of intergroup conflict and intergroup contact.

Markets and morality: how markets shape our (dis)regard for others

Abstract Scholars since Hume and Smith have debated possible causal connections between market experiences and moral beliefs. Here, we study the impact of market interactions on utilitarian versus deontological values, charitable donations, and whether individuals have differential in-group/out-group moral views. We randomly assign workers residing across several nations of varying income levels to different market conditions and found that, in low-income nations, tournament-based compensation increased deontological commitments, especially toward out-group members, and donations by productive workers, but decreased donations by less productive workers. In higher-income nations, the effect on deontological commitments reversed, while effects on out-group attitudes and donations became insignificant. These findings suggest that if utilitarian attitudes lead to more market-oriented policies, then multiple steady states arise wherein some countries sustain high levels of utilitarian attitudes and economic growth alongside progressively weakening deontological commitments and interpersonal regard for others, putting economic rationality and liberal moral development at odds.

Differential effects of positive versus negative contact: The importance of distinguishing valence from intensity

More and more research is considering the effects of both positive and negative intergroup contact on intergroup attitudes. To date, little is known about what factors may differentially influence these effects. We propose that differentiating not only between positive and negative contact (i.e., its valence), but also considering the intensity (i.e., low or high positivity/negativity) of contact valence is critical to understanding contact effects. We predicted that intensifying positivity in the realm of positive contact would have a stronger effect on outgroup attitudes than intensifying negativity. We report evidence supporting this hypothesis from three experiments which manipulated the quality of feedback given during a cooperation task by a confederate who acted as a member of a student outgroup (two online: N = 87, N = 169; one in person: N = 78), summarized in an internal meta-analysis and a large survey of White British majority and Asian British minority members ( N = 2,994). Our results suggest that intensity of valenced intergroup contact may be a key factor for resolving inconsistencies in the current literature on valenced intergroup contact.

Attitudes toward ethnic minorities among Thai students in Chiang Mai, Thailand

The increase of cultural diversity in Chiang Mai society has generated the need for introducing intercultural education in the educational system. It is crucial to prepare the young generation to interact with those perceived as “different.” The aim of the current study is to examine the majority attitude of Gen Z school students toward ethnic minority groups in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The study was based on an online survey with 14- to 19-year-old adolescents from the members of the majority group (Khon Muang). Data was collected from 265 students across two schools, a multicultural school (MS) and a predominantly Thai school (PTS). The study gathered demographic information, attitudes toward minorities, and intergroup contact experiences. Our results show generally positive attitudes toward ethnic minorities among the participants, with a significant proportion supporting social inclusion. However, students from the predominantly Thai school (PTS) demonstrated statistically significant, more negative attitudes regarding realistic threat, compared to the students from the multicultural school (MS). Gender differences in attitudes were contrast to our expectation, showing that the acceptance of intergroup marriage was positively higher in male groups. The study showed an expected association between the number of outgroup friendships and more positive outgroup attitudes. Lastly, factors such as gender and maternal education were explored by regression analysis on the perceptions of realistic threat, but these did not significantly predict attitudes toward ethnic minorities among Thai students. The findings point to the importance of supporting cultural diversity in schools and promoting multicultural education in the classroom.

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.

Testing the Moderating Effect of Anti-Prejudice Motivation and Peer Attitudes on the Effectiveness of a School-Based Vicarious Contact Intervention

Vicarious contact has often been used for studying prejudice-reduction in school contexts due to its relatively accessible application through written or audiovisual portrayals of positive intergroup contact. However, these interventions may sometimes prove ineffective, thus restricting their ecological validity and independent use in education. To contribute to the understanding of factors that might facilitate or mitigate the efficacy of vicarious contact in reducing ethnic prejudice among adolescents, the present study tested for the moderating effect of anti-prejudice motivation and friends’ outgroup attitudes. Participants were Finnish secondary school students (N = 334; M = 13.38 years, SD = 0.53; 48% female; 19% ethnic minority) allocated into cluster-randomized intervention (N = 149) and control (N = 185) groups. Participants in the intervention group took part in 4 × 45-min teacher-led intervention sessions. A pretest-posttest design was employed to assess the outgroup attitudes three weeks before the intervention and the follow-up two weeks after. The results showed that adolescents’ intrinsic, but not extrinsic, anti-prejudice motivation and the pre-intervention attitudes of their reciprocal classroom friends positively predicted post-intervention attitudes towards people from different ethnic and cultural groups. However, only extrinsic motivation moderated the intervention effect as the results indicated the intervention to have a detrimental effect on outgroup attitudes among adolescents with less motivation to be non-prejudiced in order to gain social acceptance. This attitudinal backlash among adolescents less susceptible to the social influence of others implies that motivational aspects should not be overlooked when developing school-based intervention programs, especially when social norms are used as a mechanism of attitude change.

Polyculturalism and attitudes towards cultural minorities in the Philippines

Polyculturalism is the lay theory that cultures are connected and mutually influencing each other. Previous studies demonstrate that polyculturalism is associated with different positive intergroup processes in intercultural contexts, but evidence has been mixed regarding attitudes toward different minority groups. Two studies explore whether polyculturalism is associated with positive attitudes toward cultural minority groups in the Philippines – indigenous peoples, Filipino-Chinese, and Filipino-Muslims. Participants completed questionnaires on polyculturalism, outgroup attitudes, and different control variables associated with intergroup attitudes. Across two studies, there was mostly consistent evidence on the positive relationship of polyculturalism with attitudes towards Filipino cultural minorities. In the only contrary result, high outgroup knowledge, but not polyculturalism, predicted positive attitudes towards Filipino-Chinese in Study 2. The results provide further evidence on how a dynamic view of culture has positive implications for intercultural relations.

Children's bias beyond group boundaries: Perceived differences, outgroup attitudes and prosocial behaviour

AbstractThis study explored how children's perceptions of social group differences relate to attitudes and behaviour towards real‐world outgroups. We examined Arab‐Christian children living in Israel (N = 231, 52% female, average age 9.8 years) and randomly presented them with either Arab‐Muslim or Jewish outgroup targets. The children performed tasks measuring attitudes and prosocial behaviour towards the outgroup. Additionally, they were asked to describe the differences between their ingroup and the outgroup target. We found that children favoured the Arab‐Muslim outgroup over the Jewish outgroup, and perceived it as having fewer dimensions of difference from their ingroup. Fewer perceived dimensions of difference correlated with more positive attitudes. By the age of 12, however, perceiving more dimensions of difference was linked to increased compensatory prosocial behaviour towards the Jewish outgroup. The findings emphasize the dynamic interplay between cognitive development and intergroup experiences in understanding children's prosocial behaviour towards different outgroups.

Neural alignment during outgroup intervention predicts future change of affect towards outgroup.

While social psychology studies have shown that paradoxical thinking intervention has a moderating effect on negative attitudes toward members from rival social groups (i.e. outgroup), the neural underpinnings of the intervention have not been studied. Here, we investigate this by examining neural alignment across individuals at different phases during the intervention regarding Covid-19 vaccine-supporters' attitudes against vaccine-opposers. We raise two questions: Whether neural alignment varies during the intervention, and whether it predicts a change in outgroup attitudes measured via a survey 2 days after the intervention and compared to baseline. We test the neural alignment using magnetoencephalography-recorded neural oscillations and multiset canonical correlation analysis. We find a build-up of neural alignment which emerges at the final phase of the paradoxical thinking intervention in the precuneus-a hub of mentalizing; there was no such effect in the control conditions. In parallel, we find a behavioral build-up of dissent to the interventional stimuli. These neural and behavioral patterns predict a prosocial future change in affect and actions toward the outgroup. Together, these findings reveal a new operational pattern of mentalizing on the outgroup, which can change the way individuals may feel and behave toward members of that outgroup.

Repression, Interests and Outgroup Attitudes: A Survey Experiment in Post-Coup Myanmar

Can outgroup attitudes improve in a repressive context? Existing literature highlights how shared victimization generated under repression facilitates recategorization of identity boundaries, thereby ameliorating exclusionary attitudes. We propose an alternative pathway through which outgroup attitudes can improve. We argue that individuals update their outgroup attitudes when they perceive outgroups as contributing to a shared goal. Rather than being an identity-based response, we suggest that this cognitive process involves instrumental considerations. We evaluate this theory using a web-based survey experiment carried out in post-coup Myanmar and examine attitudes toward the Rohingya, a severely marginalized group. We find that trust and support for Rohingya citizenship rights improve when the Rohingya people are framed as contributing to the pursuit of a shared goal. We also find that this is driven primarily by individuals who have more at stake in the overthrow of the coup regime compared to those with less at stake.

Minority Affirmations and the Boundaries of the Nation: Evidence From Québec

Cultural criteria, like language skills and values, are salient features of nationalism discourse, reflecting imagined boundaries that separate ingroup from outgroup member when thinking about the nation. Despite their salience, the relationship between cultural membership criteria and other civic (attainable) or ethnic (ascriptive) national boundaries, along with their implications for intergroup relations, is contested. Using surveys from N = 6448 majority group members in the Canadian province of Québec, we argue cultural boundaries are empirically distinct from civic and ethnic ones. Cultural and civic criteria are both prominent prerequisites for membership into the Québécois national community, but cultural criteria show markedly divergent relationships with outgroup attitudes. The results underline the importance of conceptualizing cultural boundaries as a distinct set of national membership criteria and question the construct validity of blended ethnocultural boundary measures or approaches that aggregate civic and cultural criteria together as equally “attainable” markers of national membership.

Unpacking the liberalizing potential of higher education: an analysis of academic majors, anti-Black prejudice, and opposition to immigration

ABSTRACT In this article, we challenge the prevailing assumption about the impact of higher education on attitudes toward racial and ethnic minorities by examining whether educational effects are monolithic or manifold instead. Using data from the General Social Survey (1972–2021), we use a variety of measures of education (years, levels, sectors, and majors) to unpack the relationship between higher education and intergroup attitudes, specifically anti-immigration attitudes among native-born Americans and anti-Black attitudes among non-African Americans. Results show that some higher education graduates hold out-group attitudes that are not much different from those without any higher education. Narrowing our focus to respondents only with higher education, we find significant variation in out-group attitudes across educational sectors and academic majors. These results have implications for how we understand previous scholarship on prejudice and higher education, which may have overestimated the impact higher education has, in general, on prejudice.

Born a local or living like one: Understandings of local belonging and outgroup attitudes

This study examines people's understanding of who is a ‘true’ local and its intergroup implications. We expected to find two general understandings – one based on ascribed (i.e., ethnic) and the other on acquired (i.e. civic) characteristics – which would be differently associated with attitudes towards newcomers. In four studies conducted in Poland, we found that people consistently make an empirical distinction between these two understandings of local city belonging (Study 1, N = 148, Study 2, N = 1016, Study 3, N = 400, Study 4, N = 686). Further, stronger endorsement of an ascribed local belonging was related to a tendency to essentialize the ingroup and support for autochthony belief (Study 1), lower acceptance of both international and internal migrants, as well as established and recent migrants (Studies 2–4), higher perceived local threat from migrants, and higher intention for collective action against migrants (Study 4). In contrast, an acquired local understanding was associated with positive attitudes and behavioral intentions towards newcomers. In sum, our results suggest that the ascribed vs. acquired distinction of local belonging is relevant for the way people relate to newcomers in their local environments.