by Paul Seager
• When the contact does come about, the social status of the two groups must be equal. There can be no perceived subordination of one group to the other;
• The contact must be predicated on the need to achieve a common target or goal. That is, there must be a good reason for the two groups to come into contact with one another – namely a need to co-operate with one another. Prejudice reduction is also far more likely to occur when there is success in achieving the common goal; failure to do so may potentially worsen the situation;
’One of the most long-lived and successful ideas in the history of social psychology has been the so-called contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954). Its central premise is that the way to reduce tension between groups is to bring them into contact with one another. However, the phrase “contact hypothesis” is something of a misnomer because it implies that mere contact is sufficient a panacea. As Allport noted, this is far from the case.’
(Brewer & Brown, 1998, p. 576)
Key idea: The contact hypothesis
The idea that, under optimal conditions, contact between two groups can reduce the prejudice felt by one of the groups towards the other.
Further conditions have been added by theorists since the days of Allport, one of which is acquaintance potential. This condition ensures that the contact occurs often enough, and for long enough, in order that meaningful relationships have the opportunity to develop between individuals of the two groups. Indeed, research has shown that finding out that members of your group have friends in the other group can improve relationships with the other group further.
Of course, there may be situations where direct contact between the two groups is not possible. However, work on ‘indirect contact’ has shown that if this is the case, under certain circumstances, it may still be possible for the contact hypothesis to work its magic. For example, if you know that other members of your group have friendships with individuals in the ‘outgroup’, then this can be sufficient to reduce your prejudice; this is referred to as extended contact. However, there may be situations where you know no one who has friendships with members of the other group: in this case, it has been shown that simply imagining (in a reasonable amount of detail) a positive contact with a person from the ‘outgroup’ can help to reduce prejudice; this is referred to as imagined contact and works due to the activation of, and increased access to, concepts linked to successful interactions. Additionally, in light of the rise of the Internet, social media (such as Facebook), and online communities and discussion forums, more recent work has started to test the virtual contact hypothesis, whereby online contact is used to reduce prejudice. This type of contact has many advantages, one of which is that it is able to bring together people who might not have been able to meet face-to-face, and another is that it is possible to remove all of the trappings of status that might have been a barrier in direct contact situations. It is early days but some results are quite promising.
With regards to the efficacy of the contact hypothesis, a meta-analysis by Pettigrew and Tropp (e.g. 2006) of the findings from over 500 studies suggested that, when group members were able to meet face-to-face, prejudice was reduced in 94 per cent of cases. Generally speaking, the more contact there was, the less prejudice there existed between groups. Additionally, findings suggested that contact was most effective in work and social settings and least effective when groups visited another group’s country. In terms of cultural effects, the contact hypothesis was found to be most effective in places such as America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, but was less effective on the African and Asian continents. Contact was found to be effective in the reduction of prejudice between heterosexuals and homosexuals, and harmful attitudes were also lessened in terms of racial and ethnic prejudice.
Whilst the contact hypothesis enjoys good empirical support, and has good practical applications, it has not been without its detractors, and a number of criticisms have been levelled at the theory – though most of the criticisms have been addressed subsequently. For example, it wasn’t clear as to how exactly the positive effect would generalize to the two groups beyond the contact situation. That is, it is all very well to have a good relationship between a black person (let’s call him Jack) and a white person (let’s call him Jim), but how would this improve the relationships between Jack and other white people, or vice versa? The danger of ‘subtyping’ was also present in that Jack might consider Jim to be unrepresentative of whites in general, and therefore simply an exception to the rule. However, research has shown that so long as the people in the contact situation are seen as representative (i.e. typical) of their groups, and that the different aspects of their groups (i.e. their race) are prominent, seen in a positive way, and not down-played, then the benefit of contact should endure.
A second criticism was that the contact hypothesis had become too convoluted, in that too many conditions were being applied to the contact situation before it could be successful; these included factors such as the need for a common language, that the contact should be voluntary as opposed to being prescriptive, and the background economy should be flourishing. However, a modification of the theory to suggest that such conditions were not essential, but instead only desirable, satisfied the critics. The more desirable conditions that were present, the more likely the contact situation would be to reduce prejudice.
Summary
There can be no doubt that the world would be a better and safer place in which to live if there was no prejudice. Regrettably this is not the case currently, but it is a laudable goal, and to this end social psychologists have attempted to define and quantify prejudice as a first step. It is not always easy to achieve this as overt prejudices may simply have been driven underground, and thus have become harder to detect and therefore require more sophisticated methods. However, by understanding the origins of both individual differences and group explanations of prejudice, it has become possible to devise interventions, such as the contact hypothesis, to help reduce intergroup prejudice. Nevertheless, more work is needed to understand, and combat, the changing nature of prejudice.
Food for thought
Identify a prejudice that seems largely to have disappeared over the last few years. With reference to this chapter, devise a way to determine whether this is really the case, or whether it has just been forced underground. Then, identify a new type of prejudice prevalent today and determine how it might be reduced.
Dig deeper
Brown, R. (2010) Prejudice: its Social Psychology. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Devine, P. G. (1989) ‘Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 5–18.
Dovido, J. F., Hewstone, M., Glick, P. & Esses, V. M. (Eds.) (2013) The SAGE Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination. Sage.
Pettigrew, T. F. & Tropp, L. R. (2006). ‘A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory’. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 90, 751–783.
Fact-check
1 Which of the following is not a type of prejudice?
a Racism
b Genocide
c Nationalism
d All of the above are, in fact, types of prejudice
2 Who was one of the first psychologists to attempt to tackle the topic of prejudice?
a Muzafer Sherif
b Theodor Adorno
c Rupert Brown
d Gordon Allport
3 A way to measure prejudice by tapping into unintentional automatic attitudes is by using the:
a Bogus pipeline
b Authoritarianism scale
c Implicit association test
d Minimal groups paradigm
4 Which of the following is not an assumption of the implicit association test for prejudice?
a Individuals are quicker to associate their own groups with negative stimuli
b Individuals are quicker to associate outgroups with negative stimuli
c Individual
s are quicker to associate their own groups with positive stimuli
d Individuals are slower to associate outgroups with positive stimuli
5 Adorno’s authoritarianism scale is based on a:
a Cognitive theory
b Psychoanalytic theory
c Evolutionary theory
d Biological theory
6 The link between social dominance orientation and prejudice tends to be:
a Quite weak, with a correlation of 0.1
b Of medium strength, with a correlation of 0.3
c Quite strong, with a correlation of 0.5
d Very strong, with a correlation of 0.7
7 Which of the following is not a valid criticism of attempts to explain prejudice through personality traits?
a It overestimates the power of the social situation in which the individual finds themselves
b Whilst there is a clear link between authoritarianism and prejudice, the levels of authoritarianism found in a prejudiced population are not always considerably different to authoritarianism levels found in a population where no prejudice is found
c It is difficult for a prejudiced society to be explained in terms of the majority of their population scoring high in personality traits linked to prejudice
d From a historical perspective, prejudice has been found to emerge within a comparatively short period of time and therefore cannot be due to personality differences in its population
8 Which of the following is not a condition for the contact hypothesis to predict the successful reduction of prejudice?
a Prevailing social norms, such as legislation, need to exist in order to promote equality between the two groups
b The status of the two groups must be that of equals when they meet
c The contact between the two groups does not need to have a specific reason for it to take place
d The contact needs to occur often and long enough for meaningful relationships to develop
9 When two groups are unable physically to come together in a contact situation, it may still be possible for prejudice to be reduced if members of one group know that one (or more) of their number have friendships with an individual in the ‘outgroup’. This is referred to as:
a Displaced contact
b Imagined contact
c Minimal contact
d Extended contact
10 According to the meta-analysis by Pettigrew and Tropp, with regards to the effectiveness of the contact hypothesis, which of the following is not true?
a Face-to-face contact reduced prejudice in 94 per cent of cases
b Contact was more effective when group members visited the other group’s country
c Contact was more effective in Europe than in Africa
d Contact was effective in reducing prejudice between heterosexual and homosexual groups
14
Intergroup relations
Groups, it seems, are extremely good at fighting with each other. It may be that the groups are gangs, rival corporations or nations, but nevertheless conflict seems almost inevitable. If you were asked to compile two lists, one which catalogued as many examples as you could think of when groups had come into conflict, and the other list covered examples of when groups has co-operated, it wouldn’t be too hard to guess which list would be the longest. Regrettably history is full of examples of group conflict. This chapter starts by looking at just how easy it is for groups to form an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality, before looking at some theories which attempt to explain why intergroup conflict occurs. It will finish by investigating ways in which conflict between groups can be reduced.
‘Whenever individuals belonging to one group interact, collectively or individually, with another group or its members in terms of their group identification, we have an instance of intergroup behavior.’
(Sherif, 1966, p. 12)
Investigating intergroup conflict
One of the first researchers to study this phenomenon was Muzafer Sherif in a series of ground-breaking field studies referred to as the ‘summer camp’ studies. Using the backdrop of an American summer camp (where teenage boys are sent away for a time during school holidays to engage in outdoor activities and give their parents a few weeks rest), Sherif and his colleagues manufactured a situation where a group of approximately twenty boys were arbitrarily split into two groups – sometimes down the middle of existing friendships. In another of the studies, there were two summer camps in the same national park and (by design) the two groups of boys only became aware of each other after a week.
The objectives of the research were threefold:
1 to observe group and friendship formation;
2 to observe the effects of introducing competition between the groups;
3 to study factors that might have an effect of reducing any conflict that arose during the first two stages.
Very quickly after the two groups had been artificially created, distinct group behaviour was observed. The boys gave names to their groups (for instance, Eagles and Rattlers; Bulldogs and Red Devils; Panthers and Pythons) in order to differentiate themselves from the other group, they made icons to represent their groups and displayed them above the doors to their dormitories. The division of the boys also had the effect of ensuring that most friendships soon became within-group (the ingroup), and any existing friendship with members of the other group (the outgroup) were suspended.
Suggestions for some form of competition were soon requested from both sets of boys and the researchers duly obliged by organizing tug-of-war contests and games of baseball. It was decided that the winning team would be awarded a cup, and members of the winning team would also be awarded individual prizes of penknives. The losers received nothing. It was noted that as soon as competition was introduced, intense rivalry between the two groups ensued: this consisted of derision of the outgroup in the form of name-calling, and it even deteriorated into physical violence in the form of the group icons being attacked by their rivals, and blows being traded when the prizes were stolen from the winning team (Sherif and his colleagues were a little too successful at creating a conflict situation).
Key idea: Ingroup and outgroup
An ingroup refers to a group to which an individual belongs, and an outgroup refers to a group, or groups, to which the individual does not belong.
The minimal group paradigm
One of the many interesting things about the summer camp studies was the ease with which social categorization occurred (ingroups and outgroups), and the two rival factions formed. However, another set of studies, equally as ground-breaking as Sherif’s, was to throw even more light on the ease with which this type of categorization could occur.
Key idea: Social categorization
The way in which people are classified as being members of different groups.
Henri Tajfel conducted a set of experiments (see Case study below) to examine the minimum conditions under which ingroup favouritism might occur, that is where individuals show a preference for members of their own group over members of an outgroup. This has come to be known as the minimal group paradigm, and it shows that mere categorization (just knowing that someone belongs to your group, but without knowing anything about them) is sufficient to bring about an intergroup bias and prejudicial tendencies i.e. you favour those in your group over those not in your group.
This has been shown to be a very robust finding, although it was not without its critics who claimed that the findings could be due to belief similarity; that is, knowing that others in your group are similar to you (in this case, liking for the same type of paintings could have been the basis for the ingroup favouritism). To try to address this alternate explanation, Tajfel and colleagues conducted a similar study, but this time the children were allocated to two groups based on the flip of the coin (and this was made explicit to the children), meaning that no belief similarity could exist. However, whilst the amount of bias evidenced by the children towards their group members was red
uced considerably, it certainly did not disappear entirely. It can therefore be concluded that whilst belief similarity can increase intergroup bias, it is certainly not a necessary factor to do so: it seems that mere categorization is still sufficient to lead to some degree of ingroup bias.
Causes and explanations of intergroup conflict
One of the common causes of intergroup conflict has been identified as relative deprivation. Such deprivation does not need to be absolute, but instead it is comparative. When a group of people thinks that it is not getting all that it expects and believes that it deserves, then a state of relative deprivation exists. Davies (1969) proposed the ‘J-curve’ hypothesis to illustrate how people project expectations into the future based on their past experiences. For example, if a group of workers have received a three per cent pay rise each year for the last five years, then it’s not unreasonable for them to believe that they will also get a three per cent pay rise next year – this is their expectation. However, if they actually then get only a one per cent pay rise in the following year, then they will experience relative deprivation. And according to this idea, it is inevitable that some form of conflict will follow.