Challenging the Stubborn Core of Opposition to Equality: Racial Contact and Policy Attitudes

Dixon, John; Durrheim, Kevin; Tredoux, Colin; Tropp, Linda R.; Clack, Beverley; Eaton, Liberty; Quayle, Michael

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00792.x

Cited by 96 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…The clearest finding of this study is that general contact with members of racial outgroups is associated with lower levels of reported prejudice. This finding contributes to the contact literature in South Africa and supports the growing consensus that increased contact is generally an effective means of reducing prejudice (Finchilescu & Tredoux, 2008;Dixon et al, 2010;Gibson & Claassen, 2010;Swart et al, 2010; Despite the small sample size, direct contact with multiracial families had a significant relationship with prejudice over and above the effects of general contact. Although extended contact with multiracial families predicted reduced prejudice by itself, it did not retain significance when direct contact with multiracial families and general contact were entered into the model and it was not possible to explore the independent effect of extended contact with multiracial families on prejudice due to the substantial overlap between measures.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

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Multiracial Families and Contact Theory in South Africa: Does Direct and Extended Contact Facilitated by Multiracial Families Predict Reduced Prejudice?

Toit

Quayle

2011

South African Journal of Psychology

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Contact theory holds that increased contact between members of different groups can improve intergroup attitudes and reduce prejudice if it meets certain quality criteria, such as equal status, common goals, and cooperation within the contact situation. It is now emerging that even extended contact, or the mere knowledge that an ingroup member has a close relationship with an outgroup member, can lead to more positive intergroup attitudes. However, in South African society optimal contact is uncommon because most social spaces and structures are governed by strong norms of microsegregation that ensure that genuine optimal contact is uncommon. Given that multiracial families exemplify most features of optimal contact while radically challenging social norms of segregation, they may be important nodes for effective prejudice-reducing contact in South African society. This exploratory study investigated the extent to which general contact with people of other races, direct contact with multiracial families (i.e. personally knowing a member of a multiracial family), and extended contact with multiracial families (i.e. knowing someone who knows a member of a multiracial family) predicted reduced prejudice, reconciliatory race-policy attitudes and reduced intergroup threat. The results show that all three forms of contact predicted significantly reduced prejudice and that direct contact with multiracial families significantly predicted reduced prejudice over and above the effect of general interracial contact. Therefore we argue that contact researchers should consider more carefully whether normatively supported contact or radically norm-violating forms of contact optimally disrupt practices of microsegregation. Additionally, we argue that multiracial romantic relationships and families deserve increased attention and support as important nodes of prejudice reduction in South African society. However, general contact was also associated with reduced support for race-based social policies which supports the argument that the prejudice-reducing effects of interracial contact may be at least partially offset by other effects that may hinder broader social change.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Race policy attitudes were operationalized as support for government policies designed to rectify race-based injustices in education, housing, land reforms and jobs using scales from Durrheim et al Dixon et al (2010). These items scaled with excellent reliability ( a = .899).…”

Section: Assessing Race-policy Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiracial Families and Contact Theory in South Africa: Does Direct and Extended Contact Facilitated by Multiracial Families Predict Reduced Prejudice?

Toit

Quayle

2011

South African Journal of Psychology

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“…As noted, Durrheim's article (this issue) reported this phenomenon. And another South African survey obtained the strongest evidence yet obtained of intergroup contact shaping policy preferences (Dixon, Tredoux, et al, in press). A random digit dialing telephone survey of South Africans found that both the frequency and quality of interracial contact related positively to White support for both racial compensatory and racial preferential policies of redress.…”

Section: Intergroup Contact In the New South Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Commentary: South African Contributions to the Study of Intergroup Relations

Pettigrew

2010

Journal of Social Issues

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The articles in this issue provide an overview of recent research on intergroup relations in South Africa. Most of them focus on intergroup contact theory, and they replicate and advance the theory in a variety of ways. They also emphatically counter those critics who believe that the theory does not apply in parts of the world with long histories of intergroup discrimination and conflict. Earlier work in Northern Ireland reached the same conclusion. The mandate for future social psychological efforts in this research area is to place contact theory and other social psychological processes in their broader structural context. Only then can this essentially bottom-up approach to social change be made useful for broad social policy. The South African emphasis on the conditions needed to achieve intergroup contact after centuries of discrimination and separation offers a solid beginning for this needed new direction.

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“…In turn, this process is assumed to gradually erode inequality at a collective and institutional level. Closely related, by decreasing the likelihood that the historically advantaged will act in ways that defend their privileges, prejudice reduction also undermines the so-called stubborn core of resistance to social change at a societal scale (Dixon et al, 2010a). It weakens, for instance, resistance to policies such as affirmative action, educational quotas, and increased taxation of the rich.…”

Section: Prejudice Reductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Prejudice Reduction to Collective Action: Two Psychological Models of Social Change (and How to Reconcile Them)

Dixon¹,

Durrheim²,

Stevenson³

et al. 2016

The Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of Prejudice

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Even when the social order appears intractable, social change is constantly unfolding all around us, finding expression in the accumulation of small acts of resistance as much as in dramatic moments of revolution. Psychologists should take interest in the dynamics of social change, whether mundane or dramatic, for at least two reasons. First, the explanation of when and why change occurs -or fails to occurrequires analysis of ordinary people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. To understand fully the conditions under which people act in ways that support or challenge the status quo, we simply cannot afford to overlook the role of psychological factors. Second and related, processes of social change invite us to (re)appraise the moral and political implications of psychological knowledge. How do we reduce discrimination against others? When do we recognize and challenge social inequality and when do we accept or even endorse it? How can we create more inclusive forms of identity and community? Such questions elide the traditional division between scholarship and advocacy. They require us to demonstrate how psychological knowledge helps create a more just and tolerant society. Perhaps less comfortably, they require us to recognize how our discipline may be complicit in maintaining social inequalities.In this chapter, we discuss two psychological models of social change, namely prejudice reduction and collective action. Both models focus on the problem of "-improving relations between groups to reduce social inequality and discrimination. However, they propose different psychological pathways to the achievement of this goal and prioritize different core questions. As we shall see, the prejudice reduction model primarily addresses the question "How can we get individuals to like one another more?" whereas the collective action model primarily addresses the question "How can we get individuals to mobilize together to challenge inequality?"The first section of the chapter elaborates the fundamental principles and underlying assumptions of these models. The second section explores the relationship between the two models of change, focusing on the allegation that prejudice reduction exerts counterproductive effects on collective action. The chapter's 481

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Challenging the Stubborn Core of Opposition to Equality: Racial Contact and Policy Attitudes

Cited by 96 publications

References 55 publications

Multiracial Families and Contact Theory in South Africa: Does Direct and Extended Contact Facilitated by Multiracial Families Predict Reduced Prejudice?

Multiracial Families and Contact Theory in South Africa: Does Direct and Extended Contact Facilitated by Multiracial Families Predict Reduced Prejudice?

Commentary: South African Contributions to the Study of Intergroup Relations

From Prejudice Reduction to Collective Action: Two Psychological Models of Social Change (and How to Reconcile Them)

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