Improving intergroup relations between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland via E‐contact

Abstract

Northern Ireland is characterised by extensive segregation between its predominantly Catholic and Protestant communities. With the aim of overcoming this segregation, the current study experimentally evaluated the effectiveness of electronic or E-contact as a novel indirect contact and prejudice-reduction strategy. Here, Catholic and Protestant participants were not required to meet physically but were involved in a collaborative and goal-orientated online interaction with a member of the other community. As predicted, E-contact improved both Catholics' and Protestants' outgroup attitudes via improved contact expectancies and reduced intergroup anxiety. These findings provide support for the contemporary role of online interactions in actively overcoming the physical and psychological barriers that often prevent prejudice reduction in segregated communities.

Modern avenues for intergroup contact: Using E-contact and intergroup emotions to reduce stereotyping and social distancing against people with schizophrenia

“…Participants believed that their interaction partner (named Jasmine or Joseph) was another university student on campus; however, unknown to participants, the responses of their interaction partner and chat moderator were preprogrammed. This method has been utilized successfully in other studies (e.g., White, Turner, et al, 2019; White, Verrelli, et al, 2018) to standardize the interaction across participants and remove the need for outgroup confederates. To increase the match between participants’ responses and the responses of the virtual confederates, the preprogrammed moderator and interaction partner always led and initiated the online chat.…”

“…Compared to the control condition, which involved an intragroup interaction (i.e., E-contact between students of the same religion), the intergroup E-contact program successfully reduced intergroup bias and anxiety. While there is growing empirical support for the benefits of E-contact for improving intergroup relations between religious and ethnic groups (e.g., White, Turner, Verrelli, Harvey, & Hanna, 2019) and between heterosexuals and homosexuals (White, Verrelli, Maunder, & Kervinen, 2018), the efficacy of E-contact for reducing stigma against mental illnesses such as schizophrenia remains untested (for a review of past E-contact research, see White, Harvey, & Abu-Rayya, 2015).…”

Beyond direct contact: The theoretical and societal relevance of indirect contact for improving intergroup relations

“…The original text‐based E‐contact intervention involved real intergroup Internet interactions between Muslim and Catholic students in segregated schools in Australia (White & Abu‐Rayya, 2012; White, Abu‐Rayya, et al., 2015; White et al., 2014). More recently, a new shorter version of E‐contact involving a preprogrammed outgroup member has been developed and tested, and has been found to successfully improve intergroup relations across multiple contexts involving: (i) Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (White, Turner, et al., 2019); (ii) bias reduction against sexual minority men and women (White, Verrelli, et al., 2019); (iii) stigma reduction against people with schizophrenia (Maunder et al., 2019); and (iv) prejudice reduction against transgender individuals (Boccanfuso et al., in press). Reliance on technologies, such as the Internet, can help reduce psychological barriers (i.e., outgroup anxiety and avoidance), because having to approach the outgroup directly is not necessary (Kauff et al., 2021; O'Donnell et al., 2021; White et al., 2020), and overcome physical barriers of space and time, making contact available globally.…”

Controlled Study of the Impact of a Virtual Program to Reduce Stigma Among University Students Toward People With Mental Disorders

“…Finally, E-contact, defined as “computer-mediated real-time interactions where members of different groups interact online” ( 57 ), has been used as a strategy for raising awareness and reducing prejudice among ideologically different groups ( 58 , 59 ). However, its implementation in the field of stigma-reduction is new and innovative, and the existing evidence shows that it can reduce stigma toward the transgender population ( 60 ).…”