Role of Group Representativeness in the Generalization Part of the Contact Hypothesis

Fifty‐odd years of inter‐group contact: From hypothesis to integrated theory

“…Effects of extended contact are consistently stronger for participants with less experience of direct contact (e.g., Christ et al, 2010;Dhont & Van Hiel, 2011), are not limited to the out-group contacts of one's in-group friends specifically (Tausch, Hewstone, Schmid, Hughes, & Cairns, 2011), appear to be equally strong for members of majority and minority groups (Gómez, Tropp, & Fernández, 2011), and are most strongly mediated by in-group norms (De Tezanos-Pinto, Bratt, & Brown, 2010;Gómez et al, 2011;Turner, Hewstone, Voci, & Vonofakou, 2008). Turner, Crisp, and Lambert (2007c) proposed that simply imagining contact with outgroup members could improve inter-group attitudes (as shown, originally, by Desforges, Lord, Pugh, Sia, Scarberry & Ratcliff, 1997) and should be part of a programme for reducing inter-group bias. Although some scholars are deeply skeptical (e.g., Bigler & Hughes, 2010), an extensive programme of research has found that imagined contact can reduce inter-group bias and improve both explicit and implicit out-group attitudes (Turner & Crisp, 2010;Turner et al, 2007c), enhance intentions to engage in future contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009, in press;Husnu & Crisp, 2010;see Crisp, Husnu, Meleady, Stathi, & Turner, 2011, for review), and even generalize to other out-groups (Harwood, Paolini, Joyce, Rubin, & Arroyo, 2011), with reduced inter-group anxiety as the key mediator.…”

Categorization and intergroup anxiety in contact between British and Japanese nationals

“…In support of this model there is evidence which suggests that non-typical group members may be subtyped as exceptions to the rule: stereotype discon®rming information associated with them is therefore ignored (Johnston & Hewstone, 1992;Rothbart & John, 1985;Weber & Crocker, 1983). More directly, some evidence suggests that contact with a typical outgroup member is associated with attitude change to the outgroup as a whole (Desforges, Lord, Ramsey, Mason, van Leeuwen, West & Lepper, 1991;Desforges, Lord & Pugh, 1997;van Oudenhoven, Groenewoud & Hewstone, 1996;Vivian, Brown & Hewstone, 1995;Wilder, 1984), while contact that contains only personalized information is not (Scarberry, Ratclie, Lord, Lanicek & Desforges, 1997).…”

Personalization and the Promise of Contact Theory

“…A failure to find evidence that positive attitudes that are established toward an outgroup member will then generalize to others who are members of that outgroup is a critical weakness in traditional contact theory (Hewstone & Brown, 1986, p. 18). Although some studies show that intergroup contact will normally elicit more positive attitudes toward the other group as a whole (e.g., Desforges et al, 1991;Desforges et al, 1997;Hewstone & Brown, 1986;Van Oudenhoven, Groenewoud, & Hewstone, 1996;Wilder, 1984a), others have only found specific attitude change without a corresponding generalization effect (e.g., Blaney, Stephan, Rosenfield, Aronson, & Sikes, 1977;Johnson & Johnson, 1981;Slavin, 1979). Studies that measure attitudes toward the outgroup as an abstract social category more often fail to obtain any generalization effect (Bond, DiCandia, & MacKinnon, 1988;Weigel, Wiser, & Cook, 1975;Wilder & Thompson, 1980).…”