Title: The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
1The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- An important prediction made by social scientists
decades ago was that increased interracial
contact would result in more positive racial
attitudes. - Racial attitudes difficult to change. Formed
early on, though change in explicit attitudes
reported (Bobo). - Prejudice was primarily based on misinformation
and ignorance due to lack of interracial contact. - Also, lack of institutional support for positive
intergroup relations divergent group interests
and goals, absence of shared identities.
2The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Solution? Expose people to accurate information
about outgroups, and stereotyping and prejudice
should be reduced. - Represents an information-oriented approach and
implies that contact between members of different
groups will reduce prejudice.
3The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- e.g., led many social scientists to predict that
gradual desegregation would increase contact, and
lead to reduced prejudice over time (originally
suggested by Gunnar Myrdal, 1944, in The American
Dilemma - Some early findings supported this idea.
Stouffer, et al (1949) The American Soldier
4The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- e.g, RE integration of the armed forces,
attitudes changed the most among White soldiers
in units that worked closely with Blacks. - Explanation? maybe had to do with the
unlearning of stereotypes which came with
increased familiarity.
5The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Deutsch Collins (1951) housing experiments
provided support White and Black families
experimentally assigned to either integrated or
segregated buildings. - Whites assigned to integrated buildings showed
more positive changes in their attitudes toward
Blacks.
6The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- But not all the theorizing or empirical evidence
was supportive of this conclusion about contact
and reduced prejudice. - Allport (1954), The Nature of Prejudice
- ?Categories and stereotypes tend to be preserved.
- ?Stereotype-disconfirming info is ignored or
forgotten, or assimilated to the initial
stereotype.
7The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- ?Disconfirming individuals are subtyped in
order to preserve the overall stereotype. - Schneiders (2004) review quite a bit of
evidence supports these claims. - Stephan (1978) on the effects of desegregation at
the local level - ?reviewed all of the post-Brown v. Board of
Education research on the effects of
desegregation.
8The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- ?Most studies showed little decrease in prejudice
following desegregation, and some even showed an
increase. - ?Black kids did not even feel better about
themselves following desegregation, in most
cases. - So, what do we make of the contact hypothesis?
9The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Most researchers began to realize that intergroup
contact per se was not enough to reduce
prejudice. - Contact must occur under certain well-defined
conditions in order to successfully change racial
attitudes for the better. - Allports (1954) hypothesis about intergroup
contact
10The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Equal status within the situation (not coming
into the situation). - Common goals (active goal-oriented effort).
- Intergroup cooperation (must be an interdependent
effort without intergroup competition. - Institutional support (support of authorities,
law, or custom).
11The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Pettigrew (1998) reviewed all existing work on
the contact hypothesis. As before, studies of
contact produced mixed results, i.e., did not
always result in more positive racial attitudes. - However, in study conditions where more of
Allports four criteria were met, more positive
attitude change occurred.
12The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Empirical Support
- Pettigrew (1997, 1998 Pettigrew Tropp, 2000)
Contact based on personal friendships is
particularly effective in reducing prejudice. - Friendship an effective form of contact. Likely
generates positive orientations (e.g.,
perspective-taking and empathy), and reduces
negative emotions like anxiety (important
mediators of the effects of contact according to
Brown Hewstone, 2005).
13The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Hewstone, Cairns, Voci, Hamberger, Niens
(2006) analyzed random sample surveys (in 1989,
1991, 2000) to test contact hypothesis on
intergroup attitudes of Catholics and Protestants
in Northern Ireland. - In first survey, found that contact was
positively related to attitudes toward
denominational mixing (controlled for prior
schooling, education level, social class).
14The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- In 2nd survey, found that intergroup contact was
positively related to outgroup attitudes, but
also with greater foregiveness and greater trust
(even among those who reported the worst
experiences with sectarian conflict). Did not get
at which aspects of contact contribute positively.
15The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Pettigrew Tropp (2006) meta-analysis greater
intergroup contact is generally associated with
lower intergroup prejudice. - Rule out participant selection (prejudiced
people avoid contact with outgroups) publication
bias lack of generalization (in fact, wide range
of effects) that less rigorous studies account
for magnitude of contact effects other study and
participant features (e.g., quality measures,
true experiments yield larger effects). Mean rs
-.205 to -.214 (large samples, 94 show effect).
16The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Key Structured optimal contact yield greater
reductions of prejudice than do other samples
(Table 5), moderated by method factors like
better control groups, measures. But key
conditions not essential to get the effect.
Institutional support and sanction key condition. - Key Effect sizes of contact-prejudice effect
varies in relation to different target groups.
Effect holds up for early (before 1980) vs. late
(1979) studies.
17The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Tropp Pettigrew (2005) meta-analysis, 515
studies from early 40s to 2000. 713 independent
samples. - Does group status moderate effectiveness of
intergroup contact? - Tropp, L.R., Pettigrew, T.F. (2005).
Relationship between intergroup contact and
prejudice among minority and majority status
groups. Psychological Science, 16(12) , 951-957
18The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Test whether the 4 optimal conditions in the
contact hypothesis will be esp. effective in
promoting positive intergroup attitudes among
majority status groups vs. minority status
groups. - 2 key findings
- 1. Regression analyses do differences in group
status significantly predict the
contact-prejudice relationship?
19The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Yes, relationships weaker among minority status
groups, above and beyond several relevant
methodological variables (e.g., type of study,
type and quality of measures, etc.). - 2. Does a global measure of optimal contact
conditions predict stronger contact effects for
both minority and majority groups?
20The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Each sample in meta-analysis rated as to whether
the contact situation was structured in line with
Allports propose optimal conditions. - Finding that this global measure significantly
predicted stronger contact-prejudice
relationships among members of majority status
groups, but not minority status groups. Effects
of the on-going histories of devaluation?
21The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Caveat the meta-analysis does not allow you to
specify the processes by which group devaluation
accounts for weaker contact-prejudice effects for
members of minority status groups. - Pettigrew (1998) need to go beyond when contact
matters, to how and why. What are the
inter-related processes of change that are
crucial to understanding the effects of
intergroup contact?
22The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Pettigrews reformulated contact theory involving
decategorization, reduced prejudice which
generalizes, and then recategorization.
Familiarity breeds liking. - Recategorization research by Dovidio, Gaertner
and colleagues recategorization a key factor in
getting contact to work. Need to foster
superordinate identities, which most settings do
not foster. - Aronsons jigsaw classroom method but does it
generalize from individuals to target group to
other outgroups?
23The Contact Hypothesis and Persuasion
- Do contact effects generalize beyond the
immediate setting? - Situational across situations.
- Individual to group from specific outgroup
members with whom one has had contact to the
broader outgroup. - To uninvolved groups generalize to other
outgroups not involved in the contact. - Pettigrew Tropp (2006) MA Yes