Prejudice and the Contact Hypothesis Flashcards
Define what is meant by prejudice.
“thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant”
- the classic definition (Allport, 1954, p.6)
What are the characteristics of prejudice?
- People are more likely to remember information about a person that “fits the stereotype”.
- Synder, M. & Uranowitz, S. (1978). Reconstructing
the past: some cognitive consequences of person
perception. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 36, 941-50. - Intergroup hostility is relatively easy to initiate but harder to
extinguish! (See research like the “Summer Camp” studies
sometimes called “The Robbers Cave” by Sherif in 1950s.)
Any non-competitive atmosphere that provides contact
between group members will increase intergroup
attraction (Williams, 1947)
“Contact with minority group members of lower
SES (socioeconomic status)… is conducive
to the formation of negative attitudes
towards the minority group”
(Watson, 1950)
Describe the Robbers Cave Experiment
What is the Contact Hypothesis?
Prejudice “may be reduced by equal status
contact between majority and minority groups
in pursuit of common goals” (Gordon Allport, 1954)
Hostility between groups is fed by unfamiliarity and
separation - under the right conditions contact between members of different groups will reduce hostility.
Common goals force people to think (and work) beyond their own group.
They should ideally be something both
groups want, but neither can achieve alone.
Identify Allport’s (1954) four ingredients
Social and institutional support
Acquaintance potential
Equal status
Cooperative interaction
Describe Social and institutional support (Allport, 1954)
Support for mixing at a higher level, could be encouraged by a government, or community/religious leaders
* e.g., Racially integrated vs segregated social housing in the
USA provided one pre-existing situation to research
(remember the USA was racially segregated until the 1960s)
* Segregated schools in Northern Ireland tend to inhibit intergroup mixing between Catholics and Protestants. (Any
implications for other faith schools?)
Describe Acquaintance potential (Allport, 1954)
Personalised contact rather than brief/formal contact
(this is more socially rewarding)
- Socially rewarding experience could generalise to group
- Acquire information to disconfirm stereotypes
Describe Equal status (Allport, 1954)
Contact should not reinforce power differences
* This is a challenge in hierarchical situations like workplaces
Describe Cooperative interaction (Allport, 1954)
Competitive activities worsen relations (cf. Summer
Camp)
* Superordinate goals appeal to both groups and
cannot be achieved without cooperation
Describe the evidence to support the Contact Hypothesis
Meta-analysis of 515 studies (!) shows highly
significant (p < .001) –ve relationship between
contact and prejudice (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006)
*Effect greatest where contact was structured to meet optimal conditions (especially cooperative interaction)
Contact interactions understood differently by
privileged vs disadvantaged groups
*Disadvantaged groups expect discrimination in contact
*Contact is still +ve but less profoundly than for the privileged status group
Hewstone & Swart (2011)
What are the disadvantages of the Contact Hypothesis?
Context - experiments more benign than real conflicts
* Assumption that stereotypes will be disproved
* Are effects generalised from contact situation?
* Individual regarded as an exception (Cook, 1985)
– Group membership less salient as person is known better
– Guided discussion used as ‘cognitive booster’ to explicitly connect
negative effects of discrimination with liked out-group member
– How “typical” of the group is the liked individual?
* The core idea of the contact hypothesis is simple;
but which ingredients are essential or merely
helpful?
* More known about when it works than how it works
Describe what is meant by indirect contact (extension of the contact hypothesis)
Segregation & conflict may prevent direct contact
Extended Contact – exposure to in-group members
who have out-group friends
* e.g., Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland: knowledge
of in-group members’ friendship with out-group
* reduces prejudice
* enhances perceptions of out-group variability
* reduces anxiety about actual contact with out-group
Explain the concept of Imagined Contact (Turner & Crisp, 2010)
Non-Muslim participants asked to:
1) Imagine interacting with a Muslim person
OR
2) think about Muslims (control)
* Islamophobia measured with an IAT (implicit association
task)
* People in imagined contact condition showed out-group
favouring bias (so implicit prejudice greatly reduced)
* But does the effect last?
* Could IAT scores be a result of easier association
between “Muslim” and “good” rather than a real shift in
attitude? (Or is that what attitude change means?)
Describe the The Jigsaw Classroom
Applied version of the Contact Hypothesis
Technique developed by Elliot Aronson (1970s)
To promote cooperation & reduce hostility in the classroom
Just as in a jigsaw puzzle, each piece — each student’s part —is essential for the completion and full understanding of the final product
If each student’s part is essential, then each student is
essential; and that is precisely what makes this
strategy so effective
Within the group, students actually start to
listen to, respect, and like one another
(Blaney et al., 1977; Aronson et al., 2013).
Explain the Mutual Intergroup Differentiation Model
Equal status contact between salient groups cannot reduce bias when those groups are threatened by contact, as when they differ in strength (Hewstone & Brown, 1986; 2005).
Need for inclusion and differentiation – group membership but also desire to feel special.
Can cooperation be complementary? Group distinctiveness but without negative comparisons.
Superordinate goal but task split between groups
(e.g., students from different faculties producing
magazine article, task divided into writing and layout)
Allows some of the out-group’s differences to be appreciated
(Brewer, 1991)
