Unwilling, but not unaffected—Imagined contact effects for authoritarians and social dominators

Asbrock, Frank; Gutenbrunner, Lisa; Wagner, Ulrich

doi:10.1002/ejsp.1956

Cited by 51 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Husnu and colleagues first demonstrated this effect in the context of prolonged conflicts in Cyprus (Crisp, Husnu, Meleady, Stathi, & Turner, 2010;. Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot participants who imagined having contact with members of the opposite group subsequently expressed greater intentions to positively engage with previously stigmatized groups in the future (see also Asbrock, Gutenbrunner, & Wagner, 2013;Birtel & Crisp, 2012a;Stathi, Crisp, & Hogg, 2011;Vezzali, Stathi, Crisp, & Capozza, 2015). In a similar vein, imagined contact has been shown to change approach and avoidance behavioral tendencies.…”

Section: The Behavioral Consequences Of Imagined Contactmentioning

confidence: 95%

Imagined contact encourages prosocial behavior towards outgroup members

Meleady

Seger

2016

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

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According to the intergroup contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954), we can reduce prejudice between different cultural groups by encouraging interaction between them. Volumes of evidence have now supported this hypothesis. Pettigrew and Tropp's (2006) meta-analysis of 515 studies confirms the robust, negative relationship between contact and prejudice. This effect is strengthened by certain "optimal" conditions (e.g., equal status of the groups in the situation, intergroup cooperation, common goals, and authority support), but remains even in their absence. The prejudicereducing effect of contact also holds for groups others than ethnic minorities for whom the hypothesis was originally formulated, including groups stigmatized on the basis of their sexuality, age, and religion (Brown & Hewstone, 2005). This is a simple, yet powerful effect. Having a positive, friendly encounter with groups that Abstract Imagined contact is a relatively new technique designed to focus the accumulated knowledge of over 500 studies of intergroup contact into a simple and versatile prejudice-reduction intervention. While it is now clear that imagined contact can improve intergroup attitudes, its ability to change actual intergroup behavior is less well established. Some emerging findings provide cause for optimism with nonverbal, and unobtrusive measures of behavior. This paper extends this work by adopting methods from behavioral economics to examine more deliberative behavior. Participants believed they were playing a prisoner's dilemma with an outgroup member. They could choose whether to cooperate or compete with the other player. In three studies, we provide reliable evidence that imagined contact (vs. control) successfully encouraged more prosocial, cooperative choices. In the third study we show that this effect is mediated by increased trust towards the outgroup member. The findings demonstrate that imagined contact interventions can have a tangible impact on volitional intergroup behaviors.

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Section: The Behavioral Consequences Of Imagined Contactmentioning

confidence: 95%

Imagined contact encourages prosocial behavior towards outgroup members

Meleady

Seger

2016

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

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“…Voci et al (2015) suggested that high ingroup identifiers are prone to show stronger contact effects since they initially hold more extreme attitudes and contact effects may generalize more strongly and easily for high ingroup identifiers for whom group membership is a salient aspect of intergroup relations (e.g., Brown & Hewstone, 2005). Studies in imagined contact literature have also confirmed this by demonstrating imagined intergroup contact to be more effective among high right-wing authoritarians (Asbrock et al, 2013) and the ones who had lower levels of previous direct contact (Hoffarth & Hodson, 2016) and higher levels of initial prejudice (West, Hotchin, & Wood, 2017). Therefore, we argued that Turkish participants with higher levels of ethnic ingroup identification would show greater contact effects and benefit more from imagined contact.…”

Section: S Tu D Ymentioning

confidence: 95%

Imagined contact in high conflict settings: The role of ethnic group identification and the perspective of minority group members

Bağcı

Piyale

Ebcim

2017

J Applied Social Pyschol

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Recent contact literature has shown that imagining a positive intergroup encounter improves intergroup attitudes and behaviors, yet less is known about the effects of imagined contact in high conflict settings. We conducted three studies to understand the potential effects of imagined intergroup contact among ethnic Turks (majority status) and ethnic Kurds (minority status) in the Turkish-Kurdish interethnic conflict setting. Study 1 (N 5 47, Turkish) tested standard imagined contact effects (neutral vs. standard imagined contact condition) among majority Turks and showed that imagined contact was effective on outgroup attitudes, perceived threat, intergroup anxiety, and support for multiculturalism only among participants with higher ethnic identification.Study 2 (N 5 107, Turkish) examined how ethnic identification of the contact partner would influence the effectiveness of the standard imagined contact scenario (neutral vs. standard vs. ethnic identification condition) and demonstrated that imagined contact effects were more negative when the contact partner identified with his/her ethnic group during imagined contact. Study 3 (N 5 55, Kurdish) investigated imagined contact effects (neutral vs. standard imagined contact condition) among an ethnic minority group and showed that imagined contact did not improve minority group members' outgroup attitudes, but did decrease intergroup anxiety and perceived discrimination (marginally significantly) and increased perceived positive attitudes from the majority group. Practical implications of the use of imagined intergroup contact strategy in conflictridden settings were discussed.

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“…Despite these encouraging findings, the imagined contact field still faces challenges: some have been unable to replicate the imagined contact effects [48][49][50][51]; others have found limited effects of imagined contact among minority group members [52]; it is not clear how long the effects last for adults or how imagined contact is most effectively combined with other forms of contact; and, as with other contact interventions [23*], effect sizes are typically small.…”

Section: Imagined Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indirect contact and prejudice reduction: limits and possibilities

Brown

Paterson

2016

Current Opinion in Psychology

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Here we review recent developments in the field of indirect intergroup contact, an extension of the classic Contact Hypothesis. Three forms of indirect contact are assessed: extended, vicarious and imagined. The strengths and limitations of each are evaluated. Although not as potent as direct contact, indirect forms of contact generally offer a more diverse set of practical solutions for reducing prejudice, especially in challenging contexts where direct contact may be infrequent or impossible.

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Unwilling, but not unaffected—Imagined contact effects for authoritarians and social dominators

Cited by 51 publications

References 47 publications

Imagined contact encourages prosocial behavior towards outgroup members

Imagined contact encourages prosocial behavior towards outgroup members

Imagined contact in high conflict settings: The role of ethnic group identification and the perspective of minority group members

Indirect contact and prejudice reduction: limits and possibilities

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