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Objectives: The present research investigated the role of a pervasive and often negative form of indirect contact, exposure to mass media news on interethnic contact. Specifically, we examined the associations between mass media exposure and both African immigrants' attitudes toward native Italians and their collective action intentions to achieve higher intergroup equality in the host country., Method: We conducted two survey studies, one cross-sectional (Study 1, N = 285) and the second longitudinal (Study 2, N = 423) with African immigrants living in Italy., Results: Exposure to negative mass media news was linked to less positive attitudes toward native Italians and more collective action of African immigrants. The negative link between negative mass media news exposure and intergroup attitudes was stronger for those African migrants who reported relatively low positive and negative direct intergroup contact. These findings were consistent across both studies. The positive link between negative mass media news exposure and collective action was stronger among African immigrants with relatively low negative direct intergroup contact., Conclusions: The evidence illustrates the independent and combined ways in which the valence of direct and indirect contact can affect immigrants' attitudes toward natives, and their motivation to build a more inclusive and equal society. Overall, results highlighted the greater strength of negative rather than positive indirect contact of immigrants, especially when they reported less positive direct contact experience with native Italians. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

While social networks are typically relatively stable in size over time, major changes in life circumstances can result in opportunities to acquire new friends. How young adults manage their relationships with their wider network of friends and family during such transitions is, however, not well understood. Using a prospective longitudinal design, we investigate changes in the size and composition of complete egocentric networks of two cohorts of young adults moving away from home to college. We show that, although networks grow rapidly due to an influx of new friends made at college, the social overload that would result is partially mitigated through the progressive loss of pre-transition friendships (but not family relationships). In addition, most of the new relationships are placed in the outermost, emotionally less close network layers that are less costly to maintain. In contrast, the more intimate inner layers of the network remain stable in size, with efforts being made to conserve these relationships. The overriding importance of face-to-face interaction in creating and maintaining ties (compared to digital media) results in the emotional quality of a tie being traded off against the constraints imposed by physical distance. The most reliable predictor of the proportion of original members with whom relationships were maintained post-transition was pre-transition network size, with weaker effects due to geographical proximity and personal popularity in the new social context. These findings have implications for managing transitions to a new environment at any life stage., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest none., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Both homophily and heterophily are observed in humans. Homophily reinforces homogeneous social networks, and heterophily creates new experiences and collaborations. However, at the extremes, high levels of homophily can cultivate prejudice toward out-groups, whereas high levels of heterophily can weaken in-group support. Using data from 24,726 adults ( M = 46 years; selected from 10,398 English neighborhoods) and the composition of their social networks based on age, ethnicity, income, and education, we tested the hypothesis that a middle ground between homophily and heterophily could be the most beneficial for individuals. We found that network homophily, mediated by perceived social cohesion, is associated with higher levels of subjective well-being but that there are diminishing returns, because at a certain point increasing network homophily is associated with lower social cohesion and, in turn, lower subjective well-being. Our results suggest that building diverse social networks provides benefits that cannot be attained by homogeneous networks.

Objectives: The present research investigates the associations between immigrants' positive and negative contact with the majority group and their psychological well-being, as indicators of their psychosocial adjustment to the host society. Perceived personal discrimination and relative deprivation in comparison to the majority group are assessed as mediators of the associations between intergroup contact and psychological well-being., Method: We conducted a three-wave longitudinal study with newcomer African immigrants living in Italy ( N = 240; 61.7% men) with age ranging from 18 to 40 years old., Results: Evidence showed that, across three waves, immigrants' negative contact with Italian natives was longitudinally associated with lower well-being and positive intergroup contact. In turn, well-being was related to immigrants' lower perceptions of relative deprivation across waves. Positive contact with Italian natives was not significantly associated with immigrants' well-being, but it was associated with higher perceived relative deprivation, which was associated with lower well-being., Conclusions: Overall, the results provide insight into the links between differently valenced contact and the psychological well-being of newcomer immigrants. Furthermore, the findings address assumptions about the primacy of negative contact in undermining social attitudes and the important role of positive contact in promoting awareness of the disadvantaged group's situation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Intergroup contact provides a reliable means of reducing prejudice. Yet, critics suggested that its efficacy is undermined, even eliminated, under certain conditions. Specifically, contact may be ineffective in the face of threat, especially to (historically) advantaged groups, and discrimination, experienced especially by (historically) disadvantaged groups. We considered perceived intergroup threat and perceived discrimination as potential moderators of the effect of contact on prejudice. Two meta-analyses of correlational data from 34 studies (totaling 63,945 respondents-drawn from 67 subsamples across 19 countries) showed that contact was associated with decreased prejudice and increased out-group positivity, in cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, among advantaged and disadvantaged group members, and in both Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) and non-WEIRD contexts. Both perceived threat and perceived discrimination moderated the contact-attitude association, but in an unanticipated direction. Indeed, contact's beneficial effects were at least as strong among individuals high ( r = .19) as among individuals low ( r = .18) in perceived threat. Similarly, the effects of contact were at least as strong among those high ( r = .23) as among those low ( r = .20) in perceived discrimination. We conclude that contact is effective for promoting tolerant societies because it is effective even among subpopulations where achieving that goal might be most challenging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A longitudinal field study tested the long-term effects (three years) of intergroup contact on both explicit and implicit outgroup attitudes. Participants were majority (Italian) and minority (immigrant) high-school students, who were tested at four waves from the beginning of their first year in high-school to the end of the third school year. Results revealed, first, a longitudinal association of quantity (but not quality) of contact with lower intergroup anxiety and more positive explicit attitudes, as well as bidirectional effects over time between explicit attitudes and intergroup anxiety, on the one hand, and quantity and quality of contact, on the other. Second, reduced intergroup anxiety mediated the association between quantity of contact and improved explicit attitudes over time. Third, the product of quantity and quality of contact longitudinally predicted more positive implicit outgroup attitudes over school years. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of findings., (© 2022 The Authors. British Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.)

In our current globalised, multicultural world, understanding antecedents of reciprocal interactions between native people and people of immigrant background is a major issue, because intergroup contact plays a crucial role in building inclusive societies. In this vein, using daily diary data, we examined the relation between the number of daily positive and negative interactions of White British majority (N = 744) and Asian British minority people (N = 582) with members of the respective outgroup, with RWA, SDO, perceived ingroup norms, neighbourhood diversity and contextual deprivation. Results showed that for the majority group, ingroup norms in favour of intergroup contact were positively associated with positive intergroup encounters, whereas Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) was positively associated with negative intergroup contact. Neighbourhood diversity was positively associated with positive and negative intergroup encounters. Moreover, RWA moderated the relationship between neighbourhood diversity and both positive and negative contact of White British people. For the minority group, ingroup norms were positively associated with positive intergroup contact, and the relationship between ingroup norms and negative contact was moderated by SDO. Overall, different factors affect positive and negative intergroup contact of majority and minority groups. We discuss the implications of the findings for future research and interventions., (© 2022 The Authors. International Journal of Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Union of Psychological Science.)

Positive contact between members of different groups reduces prejudice and increases cooperation, findings known as intergroup contact effects. Yet in real-world settings not only positive, but also negative intergroup contact occurs, which have opposing effects. To date little is known about whether and how an individual's valenced history of intergroup contact influences contact effects and how this dynamic change happens during specific instances of intergroup contact. A pilot study examined the psychological impact of a novel paradigm to assess intergroup contact using a behavioral game. We then conducted two studies, which allowed us to observe a sequence of up to 23 in- and outgroup interactions and their behavioral outcomes in a continuous prisoner's dilemma behavioral game ( N = 116, 2,668 interactions; N = 89, 1,513 interactions). As expected, participants showed a clear ingroup bias in expectations and cooperation. Furthermore, the quality of contact history moderated contact effects. Specifically, intergroup contact following a positive history of intergroup contact had a stronger effect on intergroup expectations than contact following a negative history thereof. Findings are discussed in view of the importance of considering the valenced history of intergroup contact, as well as new research questions on intergroup contact that can be addressed with this novel contact paradigm. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Intergroup contact is key to social cohesion, yet psychological barriers block engagement with diversity even when contact opportunities are abundant. We lack an advanced understanding of contact seeking because intergroup contact is often an independent variable in research, and studies on contact seeking have favoured experimental probing of selected factors or measured only broad behavioural intentions. This research carried out the first ecological tests of a novel multilayer-multivariate framework to contact seeking/avoiding. These tests were centred on a Muslim-led community contact-based initiative with visible support from local authorities following a terrorist attack. Non-Muslim Australian women (N = 1,347) contributed field data on their situated contact motivations, choices, and attendance at an intercultural educational stall; many (N = 559) completed a profiling test battery. Among those who responded to the initiative invite, the rate of taking up the high-salience contact opportunity in this heated setting was high and reflected multiple approach/avoidance motivations. Contact seeking/avoiding was not just allophilia/prejudice; it presented as new typologies of politicized solidarity, courage, apathy, and moral outrage. While intergroup predictors were significant across all profiling analyses, intrapersonal and interpersonal predictors also regularly contributed to explain variance in non-Muslims' contact motivations and choices, confirming their multilayer-multivariate nature., (© 2021 The British Psychological Society.)

Friendships with members of our own group (ingroup) and other groups (outgroups) shape our attitudes toward outgroups. Research on intergroup contact has shown that the numbers of outgroup and ingroup friends we have influence our outgroup attitudes, whereas research on socialization has shown that the attitudes held by our friends influence our outgroup attitudes. Past research, however, examined these processes in isolation, which precludes discerning whether having friends, or the attitudes held by our friends, are both important in shaping our outgroup attitudes, and, if so, which is more important. To disentangle these effects, we conducted a 5-wave social network study in 2 ethnically diverse schools (N = 1,170 students). By applying a novel longitudinal coevolution model, we were able to separate the effects of having ingroup and outgroup friends (contact effects), and the effects of those friends' attitudes (socialization effects), on individuals' outgroup attitudes, while controlling for friendship selection processes. In so doing, we found that it is principally the attitudes of ingroup friends-not outgroup friends' attitudes or having ingroup and outgroup friends alone-that predict individuals' outgroup attitudes. Our findings have important theoretical implications, as we demonstrate that combining the divergent approaches of intergroup contact and socialization enables us to better understand outgroup attitude development. Our findings also have practical implications, as we show that, even in diverse environments, individuals rely primarily on friends from their own group to inform their attitudes toward other groups. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Past research has shown that intergroup contact can be a promising intervention to improve intergroup relations and that contact-based interventions might be most effective during adolescence. In postconflict Northern Ireland, widespread residential segregation and a largely separate school system limit opportunities for intergroup contact between adolescents from the Catholic and Protestant communities. We evaluated whether a large-scale intervention to facilitate intergroup contact between students attending separate schools (the 'Shared Education' program) improves a range of outcomes relevant for intergroup relations in Northern Ireland. We conducted a 5-wave longitudinal, quasi-experimental study that followed a large sample of school students ( N = 5,159, M age = 12.4, age range: 10-14 years; 2,988 girls, 2,044 boys) from 56 predominantly Catholic or Protestant schools from sixth to tenth grade. We compared the developmental trajectories of students who, in 9th (14-15 years) and 10th (15-16 years) grade, shared some classes with students from the other community, as part of the program, to students who did not. We found that participating in shared classes had a medium-size, positive effect on the amount of intergroup contact students had outside of class, and small, positive effects on students' outgroup attitudes, outgroup trust, and intergroup empathy (but not on their intergroup anxiety, future contact intentions, deprovincialization, or multicultural beliefs). Our findings show that a school-based program of shared education can provide a viable and effective intervention to facilitate intergroup contact, improve intergroup relations, and foster social integration among adolescents at a large scale in a postconflict society. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Past research has found intergroup contact to be a promising intervention to reduce prejudice and has identified adolescence as the developmental period during which intergroup contact is most effective. Few studies, however, have tested whether contact-based interventions can be scaled up to improve intergroup relations at a large scale. The present research evaluated whether and when the National Citizen Service, a large-scale contact-based intervention reaching one in six 15- to 17-year-olds in England and Northern Ireland, builds social cohesion among adolescents from different ethnic backgrounds. In a diverse sample of adolescents (N = 2099; M age  = 16.37, age range: 15-17 years; 58% female), this study used a pretest-posttest design with a double pretest to assess the intervention's effectiveness. Controlling for test-retest effects, this study found evidence that the intervention decreased intergroup anxiety and increased outgroup perspective-taking-but not that it affected intergroup attitudes, intergroup trust, or perceptions of relative (dis-)advantage. These (small) effects were greater for adolescents who had experienced less positive contact before participating and who talked more about group differences while participating. These findings suggest that the intervention might not immediately improve intergroup relations-but that it has the potential to prepare adolescents, especially those with less positive contact experiences before the intervention, for more positive intergroup interactions in the future.

This longitudinal, quasi-experimental field study investigated affective forecasting as a moderator of positive intergroup contact effects among adolescents. We also examined a novel mediating mechanism that underlies this effect, namely accuracy of perceived outgroup willingness for intergroup contact. Three annual waves of survey data were used from 1,169 adolescents (Mage = 13.88 at Wave 1; 50% girls; 66% White British, 44% Asian British) whose schools were merged, in a unique intervention that resulted in one school where ethnic groups were evenly mixed (i.e., balanced school) and two White British majority schools (i.e., majority skewed schools). Results showed that positive intergroup contact and attitudes improved more in the balanced school than in the majority skewed schools. In all schools, change in adolescents' positive intergroup contact predicted change in positive intergroup attitudes indirectly via (a) increased accuracy of perceived outgroup willingness for contact and (b) reduced intergroup anxiety. Indirect effects via accuracy of perceived contact willingness were stronger for adolescents who made more negative affective forecasts than for other adolescents. These moderated mediation effects were stronger in the balanced school than in the majority skewed schools. Thus, more balanced ethnic mixing in schools seemed to directly enhance positive intergroup relations and attitudes for all adolescents, but to particularly benefit adolescents who made more negative affective forecasts about positive contact before the school merger. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

COVID-19 represents a multidimensional threat with the potential to worsen intergroup relations, but perceiving a common belonging with various outgroups may prevent intergroup tensions. During the Italian lockdown, we conducted an online survey with 685 Italian participants investigating whether perceptions of common belonging (belonging to a common group, sharing a common destiny, perceiving the difficulties faced by other groups) with disadvantaged and national outgroups were associated with perceived COVID-19 threat and prejudice-related individual differences, namely social dominance orientation (SDO), need for cognitive closure (NFC), deprovincialization, pre-lockdown positive and negative face-to-face contact with immigrants. We also explored the moderating roles of individual differences in the link between perceived threat and perceptions of common belonging. Results showed that common belonging was negatively associated with COVID-19 perceived threat, SDO, and NFC, and positively associated with deprovincialization and positive contact, with differences depending on the common belonging index and on the type of outgroup. Moderations showed that negative relationships between common belonging and COVID-19 threat held only at low levels of NFC (floor effect), deprovincialization, and positive contact. Summarizing, positive contact with minorities and openness to other cultures can favor a sense of communion with other social groups in a global health emergency., (© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Modern societies are facing unprecedented changes in their ethnic composition. Increasing ethnic diversity poses critical new challenges as people interact with new cultures, norms, and values, or avoid such encounters. Heated academic and political debates focus on whether and how changes in ethnic composition affect societies and local communities. Yet, there is insufficient scientific evidence of how living in a more diverse society affects individuals' well-being and health. The aim of this study is to test the extent to which increasing neighbourhood ethnic diversity affects individuals' subjective health and well-being and objective stress levels as measured by allostatic load. We analyse a large panel data set containing over 47,000 English respondents living in 15,545 neighbourhoods in England from the British Household Panel Survey and the UK Household Longitudinal Study, from 2004 to 2011. We match respondents to neighbourhoods and merge contextual information about levels of neighbourhood ethnic diversity and deprivation from UK Censuses, whilst controlling for background characteristics. We distinguish between short- and long-term effects of ethnic diversity on individual subjective well-being and health as well as allostatic load using a set of multilevel mixed-effects models. We make cautious causal interpretations by estimating fixed-effects models and cross-lagged panel models. We assess the robustness of our findings by replicating our analysis using alternative composite measures of diversity and allostatic load. In the short-term, increasing ethnic diversity of local areas is associated with a dip in subjective well-being, but short-term changes are not prolonged or profound enough to affect chronic stress (allostatic load). The initial negative impact of ethnic diversity on subjective well-being and health dissipates with time. In the long-term, no effects of ethnic diversity on well-being and health or chronic stress (allostatic load) are detected. Understanding the dynamic nature of the effects of ethnic diversity on individuals has critical implications for social and public health policies - issues prominent in, for example, the UK (Brexit) and the US (election of President Donald Trump). Our analysis identifies and enables the promotion of beneficial effects, while targeting the pernicious components to turn diversity into a valuable asset in a globalising world., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Harsh parenting attitudes and behaviors negatively impact children's behavior and development, and are linked to heightened levels of violence in children. Parent training programs are effective preventive interventions, but only reach caregivers who attend them. In this study, programs were implemented alongside a community mobilization process, intended to use caregivers' social networks to disseminate new parenting skills community wide. We used social network analysis to explore whether this intervention, first, increased positive parenting, second, changed social networks of female caregivers (selection), and, third, influenced parenting behavior via connections (socialization), while controlling for psychiatric morbidity, parenting stress, alcohol misuse, and child's age. "Colored" Afrikaans-speaking female caregivers (N = 235; mean age 35.92 years) in a rural community in South Africa, with children between 1½ and 18 years old, were included in the study; two waves of data were collected (January-April 2016 and June-October 2017). We detected community-wide increases in positive parenting behavior (involvement, supervision, consistent discipline, and reduced corporal punishment). Attending at least one session of a parenting skills training program (n = 51; 21.7%) significantly predicted increases in network centrality (i.e., outdegree and indegree). Caregivers appeared to use similar parenting behavior to other caregivers they were connected to within the network, especially when those others attended a parenting skills training program. Overall, the results suggest that the information in the intervention was spread throughout the community through social interactions with program attendees and the community mobilization process. The results also illustrate the value of social network analysis for ascertaining the processes by which the intervention achieved its impact.

Cognitive biases shape our perception of the world and our interactions with other people. Information related to the self and our social ingroups is prioritised for cognitive processing and can therefore form some of these key biases. However, ingroup biases may be elicited not only for established social groups, but also for minimal groups assigned by novel or random social categorisation. Moreover, whether these 'ingroup biases' are related to self-processing is unknown. Across three experiments, we utilised a social associative matching paradigm to examine whether the cognitive mechanisms underpinning the effects of minimal groups overlapped with those that prioritise the self, and whether minimal group allocation causes early processing advantages. We found significant advantages in response time and sensitivity (dprime) for stimuli associated with newly-assigned ingroups. Further, self-biases and ingroup-biases were positively correlated across individuals (Experiments 1 and 3). However, when the task was such that ingroup and self associations competed, only the self-advantage was detected (Experiment 2). These results demonstrate that even random group allocation quickly captures attention and enhances processing. Positive correlations between the self- and ingroup-biases suggest a common cognitive mechanism across individuals. These findings have implications for understanding how social biases filter our perception of the world.

Dual identity (e.g., strong ethnic and national identity) is a psychological resource for minority groups, but how it develops during adolescence is less clear. In this 3-wave longitudinal study, a person-oriented approach was used to examine dual identity development in a sample of 2145 Muslim adolescents (M T1  = 15 years, 51% female) in four Western European countries. The results of a growth-mixture model pointed toward four distinct developmental Classes: (1) "Dual identity", (2) "Separation to dual identity", (3) "Assimilation to dual identity", and (4) "Separation". Multiple group comparisons further showed that adolescents in Class 1 were well adjusted, but well-being (e.g., internalizing problems, life satisfaction) and health were even higher among adolescents in Class 2. Adolescents in Class 3 had consistently lower levels of well-being, and adolescents in Class 4 had lower levels of socio-cultural adjustment (e.g., problem behaviour at school, delinquent behaviour, and lack of intergroup contact). The findings underscore that most Muslim minority adolescents in Western Europe develop a dual identity, and that the developmental process, not simply the outcome, matters for adjustment.

Humans have evolved cognitive processes favoring homogeneity, stability, and structure. These processes are, however, incompatible with a socially diverse world, raising wide academic and political concern about the future of modern societies. With data comprising 22 y of religious diversity worldwide, we show across multiple surveys that humans are inclined to react negatively to threats to homogeneity (i.e., changes in diversity are associated with lower self-reported quality of life, explained by a decrease in trust in others) in the short term. However, these negative outcomes are compensated in the long term by the beneficial influence of intergroup contact, which alleviates initial negative influences. This research advances knowledge that can foster peaceful coexistence in a new era defined by globalization and a socially diverse future., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest statement: M.H. and O.C. are coauthors on several recent articles.

According to the extended contact hypothesis, knowing that in-group members have cross-group friends improves attitudes toward this out-group. This meta-analysis covers the 20 years of research that currently exists on the extended contact hypothesis, and consists of 248 effect sizes from 115 studies. The aggregate relationship between extended contact and intergroup attitudes was r = .25, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [.22, .27], which reduced to r = .17, 95% CI = [.14, .19] after removing direct friendship's contribution; these results suggest that extended contact's hypothesized relationship to intergroup attitudes is small-to-medium and exists independently of direct friendship. This relationship was larger when extended contact was perceived versus actual, highlighting the importance of perception in extended contact. Current results on extended contact mostly resembled their direct friendship counterparts, suggesting similarity between these contact types. These unique insights about extended contact and its relationship with direct friendship should enrich and spur growth within this literature.

This study examines whether the values prevalent in one's social environment moderate the link between immigration-related ethnic diversity and social trust. Drawing on arguments related to intergroup relations and anomie, we expect that contexts characterized by a comparatively high degree of openness mitigate a trust-eroding effect of immigration. In contrast, we expect that contexts of low openness or high conservation may reinforce a trust-eroding effect. We test these propositions using survey data from Europe and the United States merged with regional indicators on immigration and value contexts. The results show that high levels of contextual openness attenuate trust-eroding consequences of immigration growth. With regard to mechanisms, we find that contextual openness moderates how change in immigration relates to generalized forms of trust rather than outgroup trust. This points to an overall anomie-reducing function of openness norms, especially in times of ethnic change., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Although the effects of direct and indirect forms of contact on intergroup relations are well documented, little is known about their longitudinal co-development. Based on the social-psychological literature, we hypothesize that indirect contact predicts future direct contact by reducing intergroup anxiety. Across five longitudinal studies (Study 1: German adults, N = 560; Study 2: German, Dutch, and Swedish school students, N = 6,600; Study 3: Northern Irish children, N = 1,593; Study 4: Northern Irish adults, N = 404; Study 5: German adults, N = 735), we systematically examined this effect, and further tested the mediating role of intergroup anxiety in Studies 3 to 5. Cross-lagged models provided consistent evidence for the positive effect of indirect contact on future direct contact, whereas a reduction in intergroup anxiety mediates this effect in most models. Results highlight the importance of indirect contact, which has the potential to increase direct contact, and thus promote social cohesion in diverse contexts, over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Although literature provides strong evidence for the beneficial role of outgroup contact, longitudinal knowledge regarding the formation and change of outgroup contact remains improvable. Using a longitudinal, large-scale data set including 6,726 majority and minority participants (M age = 14.98 years at Wave 1; 55% female) from 4 western European countries that were followed in 3 waves over 2 years, we systematically examined the development of outgroup contact during adolescence and tested the role of hypothesized predictors (i.e., intergroup attitudes and social identity) for explaining this development. In the majority, growth curve models revealed consistent patterns of ethnic homophily characterized by a continuous decline of outgroup contact, whereas this negative growth was buffered by a positive change of intergroup attitudes and a negative change of national identity during adolescence. In contrast, in the minority, outgroup contact was characterized by higher mean levels and a nonlinear development (i.e., no systematic decline or increase) of outgroup contact. Findings highlight the developmental importance of adolescence for promoting positive intergroup relations, especially for the majority, and emphasize the usefulness of contact interventions with adolescent students in school. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

Previous research has demonstrated that there is a negative relationship between ethnic diversity in a local community and social cohesion. Often the way social cohesion is assessed, though, varies across studies and only some aspects of the construct are included (e.g., trust). The current research explores the relationship between diversity and social cohesion across a number of indicators of social cohesion including neighbourhood social capital, safety, belonging, generalized trust, and volunteering. Furthermore, social psychological theories concerning the role of positive contact and its impact on feelings of threat are investigated. Using a sample of 1070 third generation 'majority' Australians and structural equation modelling (SEM), findings suggest ethnic diversity is related to positive intergroup contact, and that contact showed beneficial impacts for some indicators of social cohesion both directly and indirectly through reducing perceived threat. When interethnic contact and perceived threat are included in the model there is no direct negative effect between diversity and social cohesion. The theoretical implications of these findings are outlined including the importance of facilitating opportunities for positive contact in diverse communities.

This study advances the current literature investigating the relationship between contextual out-group exposure, inter-group attitudes and the role of inter-group contact. Firstly, it introduces the concept of contact-valence into this relationship; that is, whether contact is experienced positively or negatively. Secondly, it presents a comparative analysis of how processes of out-group exposure and frequency of (valenced) contact affect prejudice across both neighbourhoods and workplaces. Applying path analysis modelling to a nationally-representative sample of white British individuals in England, we demonstrate, across both contexts, that increasing out-group exposure is associated with higher rates of both positively- and negatively-valenced contact. This results in exposure exhibiting both positive and negative indirect associations with prejudice via more frequent inter-group mixing. These countervailing contact-pathways help explain how out-group exposure is associated with inter-group attitudes. In neighbourhoods, increasing numbers of individuals experiencing positive-contact suppress an otherwise negative effect of neighbourhood diversity (driven partly by increasing numbers of individuals reporting negative contact). Across workplaces the effect differs such that increasing numbers of individuals experiencing negative-contact suppress an otherwise positive effect of workplace diversity (driven largely by increasing numbers of individuals experiencing positive contact).

Previous research has demonstrated that in-group favouritism occurs not only in higher-level judgments such as reward allocation, but also in low-level perceptual and attentional tasks. Recently, Moradi, Sui, Hewstone, and Humphreys (2015) found a novel effect of in-group bias on a simple perceptual matching task in which football fans responded more efficiently to stimuli newly associated with their own football team than stimuli associated with rival or neutral teams. This result is consistent with a robust self-bias effect in which individuals show a large performance advantage in responding to stimuli associated with the self over stimuli associated with a close friend or a stranger (Sui, He, & Humphreys, 2012). The present research utilised a perceptual matching paradigm to investigate the relations between self and in-group prioritisation amongst a sample of college rowers. Across two experiments, we demonstrated a reliable performance advantage for self and team stimuli. We also found a relationship between the self and team advantage in RT, and demonstrated an overlap in the perception of self- and team-associated shapes that was stronger in participants who reported a greater sense of group identity with their team. Further, we found no relation between the team bias and positive valence implicitly associated with the team, showing that the team bias effects are unlikely to be driven by emotional significance. The results are consistent with an overlap between self and in-group representation, which may provide evidence for a common process driving both self and in-group perceptual advantage effects., (Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Traditionally, studies of intergroup contact have primarily relied on self-reports, which constitute a valid method for studying intergroup contact, but has limitations, especially if researchers are interested in negative or extended contact. In three studies, we apply social network analyses to generate alternative contact parameters. Studies 1 and 2 examine self-reported and network-based parameters of positive and negative contact using cross-sectional datasets ( N = 291, N = 258), indicating that both methods help explain intergroup relations. Study 3 examines positive and negative direct and extended contact using the previously validated network-based contact parameters in a large-scale, international, and longitudinal dataset ( N = 12,988), demonstrating that positive and negative direct and extended contact all uniquely predict intergroup relations (i.e., intergroup attitudes and future outgroup contact). Findings highlight the value of social network analysis for examining the full complexity of contact including positive and negative forms of direct and extended contact.

This article presents 10 reasons why social network analysis, a novel but still surprisingly underused approach in social psychology, can advance the analysis of intergroup contact. Although intergroup contact has been shown to improve intergroup relations, conventional methods leave some questions unanswered regarding the underlying social mechanisms that facilitate social cohesion between different groups in increasingly diverse societies. We will therefore explain the largely unknown conceptual and methodological advantages of social network analysis for studying intergroup contact in naturally existing groups, which are likely to help contact researchers to gain a better understanding of intergroup relations and guide attempts to overcome segregation, prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup conflict., (© 2017 The British Psychological Society.)

This article reexamines the so-called "wallpaper effect" of intergroup contact, which contends that for minority group members living in areas more densely populated by majority group members, intergroup contact fails to reduce prejudice. We tested this claim in five studies, using data from five countries, two types of contexts, a range of measures, and involving different minority versus majority groups. Using multilevel cross-level interaction models, we considered whether effects of contact on outgroup attitudes were moderated by relative outgroup size. Results failed to replicate the previously reported findings, revealing, by and large, nonsignificant cross-level moderation effects; instead, we witnessed consistent positive contact effects on attitudes. Findings are discussed against the backdrop of recent research on the consequences of diversity, as well as context-based considerations regarding minority versus majority constellations. We also discuss some exceptions to our findings that emerged for some respondent groups and contexts across the five studies.

Based on two cross-sectional probability samples (Study 1: N = 1,382, Study 2: N = 1,587), we studied the interplay between positive and negative intergroup contact, different types of intergroup emotions (i.e., episodic intergroup emotions encountered during contact and more general chronic intergroup emotions), and outgroup behavior in the context of intergroup relations between non-immigrant Germans and foreigners living in Germany. In Study 1, we showed that positive and negative contact are related to specific episodic intergroup emotions (i.e., anger, fear and happiness). Results of Study 2 indicate an indirect effect of episodic intergroup emotions encountered during contact experiences on specific behavioral tendencies directed at outgroup members via more chronic situation-independent intergroup emotions. As expected, anger predicted approaching (discriminatory) behavioral tendencies (i.e., aggression) while fear predicted avoidance. The results extend the existing literature on intergroup contact and emotions by addressing positive and negative contact simultaneously and differentiating between situation-specific episodic and chronic intergroup emotions in predicting discriminatory behavioral tendencies.

Studies have shown that attending to salient group relevant information could increase the BOLD activity across distributed neural networks. However, it is unclear how attending to group relevant information changes the functional connectivity across these networks. We investigated this issue combining resting states and task-based fMRI experiment. The task involved football fans learning associations between arbitrary geometric shapes and the badges of in-group, the rival and the neutral football teams. Upon learning, participants viewed different badge/shape pairs and their task was to judge whether the viewed pair was a match or a mismatch. For whole brain analyses increased activity was found in the IFG, DLPFC, AI, fusiform gyrus, precuneus and pSTS (all in the left hemisphere) for the rival over the in-group mismatch. Further, the ROI analyses revealed larger beta-values for the rival badge in the left pSTS, left AI and the left IFG. However, larger beta-values were found in the left pSTS and the left IFG (but not AI) for the in-group shape. The intrinsic functional connectivity analyses revealed that compare to the pre-task, post task functional connectivity was decreased between the left DLPFC and the left AI. In contrast, it was increased between the left IFG and the left AI and this was correlated with the difference in RT for the rival vs. in-group team. Our findings suggest that attending to group relevant information differentially affects the strength of functional coupling in attention networks and this can be explained by the saliency of the group relevant information., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Previous research has shown that (a) positive intergroup contact with an advantaged group can discourage collective action among disadvantaged-group members and (b) positive intergroup contact can encourage advantaged-group members to take action on behalf of disadvantaged outgroups. Two studies investigated the effects of negative as well as positive intergroup contact. Study 1 ( n = 482) found that negative but not positive contact with heterosexual people was associated with sexual-minority students' engagement in collective action (via group identification and perceived discrimination). Among heterosexual students, positive and negative contacts were associated with, respectively, more and less LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual) activism. Study 2 ( N = 1,469) found that only negative contact (via perceived discrimination) predicted LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) students' collective action intentions longitudinally while only positive contact predicted heterosexual/cisgender students' LGBT activism. Implications for the relationship between intergroup contact, collective action, and social change are discussed.

Intergroup contact represents a powerful way to improve intergroup attitudes and to overcome prejudice and discrimination. However, long-term effects of intergroup contact that consider social network dynamics have rarely been studied at a young age. Study 1 validated an optimized social network approach to investigate intergroup contact (N = 6,457; Mage  = 14.91 years). Study 2 explored the developmental trajectories of intergroup contact by applying this validated network approach in a cross-sequential design (four-cohort-four-wave; N = 3,815; 13-26 years). Accelerated growth curve models showed that contact predicts the development of attitudes in adolescence, whereas acquired attitudes buffer against decreasing contact in adulthood. Findings highlight the potential of social network analysis and the developmental importance of early intergroup contact experiences., (© 2016 The Authors. Child Development © 2016 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.)

Five studies tested whether intergroup contact reduces negative outgroup attitudes through a process of ingroup distancing. Based on the deprovincialization hypothesis and Social Dominance Theory, we hypothesized that the indirect effect of cross-group friendship on outgroup attitudes via reduced ingroup identification is moderated by individuals' Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), and occurs only for members of high status majority groups. We tested these predictions in three different intergroup contexts, involving conflictual relations between social groups in Germany (Study 1; N = 150; longitudinal Study 2: N = 753), Northern Ireland (Study 3: N = 160; Study 4: N = 1,948), and England (Study 5; N = 594). Cross-group friendship was associated with reduced ingroup identification and the link between reduced ingroup identification and improved outgroup attitudes was moderated by SDO (the indirect effect of cross-group friendship on outgroup attitudes via reduced ingroup only occurred for individuals scoring high, but not low, in SDO). Although there was a consistent moderating effect of SDO in high-status majority groups (Studies 1-5), but not low-status minority groups (Studies 3, 4, and 5), the interaction by SDO was not reliably stronger in high- than low-status groups. Findings are discussed in terms of better understanding deprovincialization effects of contact.

We report a novel effect of in-group bias on a task requiring simple perceptual matching of stimuli. Football fans were instructed to associate the badges of their favorite football team (in-group), a rival team (out-group), and neutral teams with simple geometric shapes. Responses to matching in-group stimuli were more efficient, and discriminability was enhanced, as compared to out-group stimuli (rival and neutral)-a result that occurred even when participants responded only to the (equally familiar) geometric shapes. Across individuals, the in-group bias on shape matching was correlated with measures of group satisfaction, and similar results were found when football fans performed the task, in the context of both the football ground and a laboratory setting. We also observed effects of in-group bias on the response criteria in some but not all of the experiments. In control studies, the advantage for in-group stimuli was not found in an independent sample of participants who were not football fans. This indicates that there was not an intrinsic advantage for the stimuli that were "in-group" for football fans. Also, performance did not differ for familiar versus unfamiliar stimuli without in-group associations. These findings indicate that group identification can affect simple shape matching.

Northern Ireland is still riven by segregation, caught between peace and reconciliation. Extensive survey research shows that intergroup contact has a key role to play in achieving reconciliation, whether through generic contact, cross-group friends (most effective) or indirect. Segregation is most profound in education. The new Shared Education Programme (SEP), which provides children with the opportunity to study with and meet pupils from the other community, has demonstrated benefits. The Northern Ireland Assembly's support for SEP is based on sound psychological principles and robust research evidence.

Two theories offer competing explanations of sex differences in aggressive behavior: sexual-selection theory and social-role theory. While each theory has specific strengths and limitations depending on the victim's sex, research hardly differentiates between intrasex and intersex aggression. In the present study, 11,307 students (mean age = 14.96 years; 50% girls, 50% boys) from 597 school classes provided social-network data (aggression and friendship networks) as well as physical (body mass index) and psychosocial (gender and masculinity norms) information. Aggression networks were used to disentangle intra- and intersex aggression, whereas their class-aggregated sex differences were analyzed using contextual predictors derived from sexual-selection and social-role theories. As expected, results revealed that sexual-selection theory predicted male-biased sex differences in intrasex aggression, whereas social-role theory predicted male-biased sex differences in intersex aggression. Findings suggest the value of explaining sex differences separately for intra- and intersex aggression with a dual-theory framework covering both evolutionary and normative components., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

We test whether a larger percentage of non-Whites in neighborhoods decreases associational involvement and build on earlier research in three ways. First, we explicitly consider the ethnic composition of organizations, distinguishing involvement in bridging (with out-group members) and bonding (only in-group members) organizations. Second, we start from constrict theory and test competing sets of predictions derived from conflict and contact theories to explain these relationships. Third, we examine whether relative out-group size affects involvement in different types of voluntary organizations equally. Using data from the 2005 U.S. 'Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy' survey, the percentage of non-Whites in neighborhoods is largely unrelated with associational involvement or perceived ethnic threat. However, perceiving ethnic threat is consistently negatively related with involvement in bridging organizations. Simultaneously, a larger percentage of non-Whites fosters intergroup contact, which is negatively related with perceptions of ethnic threat and involvement in bonding leisure organizations. Our results shed more light on the relationship between the relative out-group size in neighborhoods and associational involvement as well as underlying explanations for this link., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Over three studies, we identified the phenomenon of ethnic 'resegregation' and assessed the extent to which it was predicted by attributions and norms, among other variables. Study 1, an observational study, showed extensive resegregation between White and Asian students in the cafeteria of a highly mixed school. In Study 2, we found evidence of attributional correspondence for White students, who attributed both their own and the outgroup's contact avoidance more to a lack of interest than fear of rejection, whereas Asian students attributed the outgroup's contact avoidance more to lack of interest, but preferred neither explanation of their own avoidance. In Study 3, we observed a pattern of attributional correspondence among both White and Asian students who attributed both their own and the outgroup's inaction in a hypothetical intergroup cafeteria scenario more to a lack of interest than fear of rejection. Study 3 also demonstrated longitudinally, for both groups, that own lack of interest in the outgroup reduced likelihood of cafeteria contact, whereas having outgroup friends and perceiving positive ingroup norms promoted it. In addition, positive outgroup norms promoted likelihood of cafeteria contact only for Asian students. We discuss how an understanding of the factors driving resegregation is critical to effectively realizing the potential of desegregated settings., (© 2014 The British Psychological Society.)

Secondary transfer effects (STEs) of intergroup contact refer to the generalization of contact effects from a primary encountered outgroup to attitudes towards secondary outgroups (Pettigrew, 2009). Using two large, cross-sectional data sets from Germany (N = 1,381) and Northern Ireland (N = 1,948), this article examined the extent to which STEs of intergroup contact on attitudes towards a range of secondary outgroups occur via a previously unexplored psychological construct, social identity complexity (operationalized as similarity complexity and overlap complexity). Study 1 found primary outgroup contact to be associated with greater similarity complexity, but no indirect effects on secondary outgroup attitudes via complexity emerged. Study 2, however, revealed indirect positive relationships between primary outgroup contact and secondary outgroup attitudes via increased similarity complexity and overlap complexity. These relationships were obtained while controlling for two previously tested mediating mechanisms, attitude generalization (operationalized as primary outgroup attitude) and deprovincialization (operationalized as ingroup attitude and identification). We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings and the contribution of social identity complexity to understanding processes underlying STEs of contact., (© 2013 The British Psychological Society.)

A number of concerns have been raised about the possible future use of pharmaceuticals designed to enhance cognitive, affective, and motivational processes, particularly where the aim is to produce morally better decisions or behavior. In this article, we draw attention to what is arguably a more worrying possibility: that pharmaceuticals currently in widespread therapeutic use are already having unintended effects on these processes, and thus on moral decision making and morally significant behavior. We review current evidence on the moral effects of three widely used drugs or drug types: (i) propranolol, (ii) selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and (iii) drugs that effect oxytocin physiology. This evidence suggests that the alterations to moral decision making and behavior caused by these agents may have important and difficult-to-evaluate consequences, at least at the population level. We argue that the moral effects of these and other widely used pharmaceuticals warrant further empirical research and ethical analysis.

There is a growing awareness that responses to mental health disorders differ according to the label. Still, research on contact and prejudice against people with mental health disorders has generally focused on the broader label, "mental illness," as though various disorders were interchangeable. The present research specifically investigated the relationship between intergroup contact and avoidance of people with schizophrenia--a particularly stigmatized and challenging group--as well as mediators of that relationship. In Study 1, 78 students completed measures of their prior contact with and prejudice against people with schizophrenia. Prior contact predicted less desired avoidance of people with schizophrenia, and this relationship was mediated by more favorable attitudes. Study 2 (N = 122) replicated the results of Study 1, and also found that less fear and less intergroup anxiety mediated the relationship between contact and avoidance. This suggests that contact may effectively reduce prejudice, even against this highly stigmatized group.

Two studies tested the prediction that more positive intergroup contact would be associated with reduced aggressive intergroup action tendencies, an effect predicted to occur indirectly via reduced intergroup threat perceptions, and over and above well-established effects of contact on intergroup attitudes. Study 1, using data based on a cross-section of the general population of eight European countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, and the UK; N = 7,042), examined this hypothesis in the context of aggressive action tendencies towards immigrants. Study 2, using longitudinal data obtained from a general population sample in Northern Ireland, considered effects on aggressive action tendencies between ethno-religious groups in conflict. Both studies confirmed our predictions, showing that while perceived threat was associated with greater intergroup aggressive tendencies, positive intergroup contact was indirectly associated with reduced aggressive action tendencies, via reduced intergroup threat. Findings are discussed in terms of the theoretical contributions of this research for understanding the relationship between intergroup contact and intergroup aggression., (© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

A primary means for the augmentation of cognitive brain functions is "pharmacological cognitive enhancement" (PCE). The term usually refers to the off-label use of medical substances to improve mental performance in healthy individuals. With the final aim to advance the normative debate taking place on that topic, several empirical studies have been conducted to assess the attitudes toward PCE in the public, i.e., in groups outside of the academic debate. In this review, we provide an overview of the 40 empirical studies published so far, reporting both their methodology and results. Overall, we find that several concerns about the use of PCE are prevalent in the public. These concerns largely match those discussed in the normative academic debate. We present our findings structured around the three most common concerns: medical safety, coercion, and fairness. Fairness is divided into three subthemes: equality of opportunity, honesty, and authenticity. Attitudes regarding some concerns are coherent across studies (e.g., coercion), whereas for others we find mixed results (e.g., authenticity). Moreover, we find differences in how specific groups-such as users, nonusers, students, parents, and health care providers-perceive PCE: a coherent finding is that nonusers display more concerns regarding medical safety and fairness than users. We discuss potential psychological explanations for these differences.

Prejudice is an enduring and pervasive aspect of human cognition. An emergent trend in modern psychology has focused on understanding how cognition is linked to neural function, leading researchers to investigate the neural correlates of prejudice. Research in this area using racial group memberships has quickly highlighted the amygdala as a neural structure of importance. In this article, we offer a critical review of social neuroscientific studies of the amygdala in race-related prejudice. Rather than the dominant interpretation that amygdala activity reflects a racial or outgroup bias per se, we argue that the observed pattern of sensitivity in this literature is best considered in terms of potential threat. More specifically, we argue that negative culturally-learned associations between black males and potential threat better explain the observed pattern of amygdala activity. Finally, we consider future directions for the field and offer specific experiments and predictions to directly address unanswered questions.

We assessed evidence for a contextual effect of positive intergroup contact, whereby the effect of intergroup contact between social contexts (the between-level effect) on outgroup prejudice is greater than the effect of individual-level contact within contexts (the within-level effect). Across seven large-scale surveys (five cross-sectional and two longitudinal), using multilevel analyses, we found a reliable contextual effect. This effect was found in multiple countries, operationalizing context at multiple levels (regions, districts, and neighborhoods), and with and without controlling for a range of demographic and context variables. In four studies (three cross-sectional and one longitudinal) we showed that the association between context-level contact and prejudice was largely mediated by more tolerant norms. In social contexts where positive contact with outgroups was more commonplace, norms supported such positive interactions between members of different groups. Thus, positive contact reduces prejudice on a macrolevel, whereby people are influenced by the behavior of others in their social context, not merely on a microscale, via individuals' direct experience of positive contact with outgroup members. These findings reinforce the view that contact has a significant role to play in prejudice reduction, and has great policy potential as a means to improve intergroup relations, because it can simultaneously impact large numbers of people.

This research reported here speaks to a contentious debate concerning the potential negative consequences of diversity for trust. We tested the relationship between neighborhood diversity and out-group, in-group, and neighborhood trust, taking into consideration previously untested indirect effects via intergroup contact and perceived intergroup threat. A large-scale national survey in England sampled White British majority (N = 868) and ethnic minority (N = 798) respondents from neighborhoods of varying degrees of diversity. Multilevel path analyses showed some negative direct effects of diversity for the majority group but also confirmed predictions that diversity was associated indirectly with increased trust via positive contact and lower threat. These indirect effects had positive implications for total effects of diversity, cancelling out most negative direct effects. Our findings have relevance for a growing body of research seeking to disentangle effects of diversity on trust that has so far largely ignored the key role of intergroup contact.

This study investigated the effect of interpersonal power on co-operative performance. We used a paired electro-encephalogram paradigm: pairs of participants performed an attention task, followed by feedback indicating monetary loss or gain on every trial. Participants were randomly allocated to the power-holder, subordinate or neutral group by creating different levels of control over how a joint monetary reward would be allocated. We found that power was associated with reduced behavioural accuracy. Event-related potential analysis showed that power-holders devoted less motivational resources to their targets than did subordinates or neutrals, but did not differ at the level of early conflict detection. Their feedback potential results showed a greater expectation of rewards but reduced subjective magnitude attributed to losses. Subordinates, on the other hand, were asymmetrically sensitive to power-holders' targets. They expected fewer rewards, but attributed greater significance to losses. Our study shows that power corrupts balanced co-operation with subordinates.

We propose that intergroup contact provides an effective means by which to reduce, resolve, and prevent conflict of all kinds, including violent conflict. We review the vast literature on the effectiveness of intergroup contact and discuss when and how it reduces prejudice. We also discuss key features of successful interventions, highlighting examples from conflict zones around the world. Rather than accepting, as some scholars do, that conflict is inevitable, we argue that intergroup contact, in its various forms, can play a pivotal and preemptive role in conflict prevention. We suggest that a blunt application of contact theory, particularly when groups are of unequal status, can have some unfortunate consequences, and contact interventions can, and should, be designed to overcome these pitfalls. We argue that, ultimately, contact is a powerful tool that needs to be used alongside other means of conflict reduction, resolution, and prevention in order to frame sound public policy and build lasting peace., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)