Prejudice reduction: the contact hypothesis

Prejudice and social cognition

Hey all,

Welcome to Human Nature, the illustrated psychology newsletter.

Up until now, we explored the causes of prejudice and discrimination. Over the next few weeks, we will look at ways of reducing prejudice.

Today’s topic is the contact hypothesis.

The contact hypothesis

During the mid 1950s, Gordon Allport, a key figure in social psychology, developed the contact hypothesis. He argued that close contact with members of the outgroup is bound to reduce prejudice towards the outgroup. However, he believed that certain conditions had to be met in order for the contact to be effective. These were: 1) there has to be a potential for the people to become acquainted, 2) they need to have equal status, 3) they need to cooperate towards a common goal and 4) the social norms should support contact (Allport, 1954).

Although early research seemed to lend support to Allport’s theories, later down the line psychologists began to question whether contact was sufficient for generalising one’s positive attitudes from the individual towards the outgroup as a whole. They also wondered whether all four of Allport’s proposed conditions were necessary.

Fifty years after Allport first developed his contact hypothesis, Pettigrew and Tropp (2006) conducted a systematic review of over 500 contact studies to examine the relationship between contact and prejudice. They found that an overwhelming majority of the papers reported a significant relationship between contact and prejudice reduction. One good thing about the studies they examined was that they all met Allport’s conditions at various degrees, which allowed Pettigrew and Tropp to deduce which, if any, of these conditions were necessary for contact to be effective. The results indicated that close contact helped reduce prejudice even if none of these conditions were met. However, they found that the more conditions were fulfilled, the stronger the was the effect of prejudice reduction.

The above study suggested that the positive effects of contact generalised from the encountered group member to the outgroup as a whole. However, they could not explain under which conditions this generalisation occur. The answer to this question can be found in an earlier study. In 1984, Wilder conducted an experiment where he got female students from two rival colleges to interact with each other (Douglas College and Rutgers College). Each group had certain stereotypes of the other. While Rutgers women saw Douglas women as preppy, conservative and studious, Douglas women thought of Rutgers women as liberals who love partying.

In the study, Wilder got each participant to interact with a student from the rival college and work together on several problem-solving tasks. Unbeknownst to the participants, the other student was in fact a confederate recruited by Wilder. In one condition, the confederate dressed and acted in a way that was typical of her college’s stereotype, while in the other condition she acted in a way that was atypical. Furthermore, the confederate acted in either a positive or negative manner. Unsurprisingly, participants rated the outgroup more positively when the confederate was pleasant. However, this positive rating only generalised to the outgroup as a whole when the confederate acted like a typical member of that group.

Thank you for reading, see you next time.

Sources:

The nature of prejudice (Allport, 1954)

A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006)

Intergroup contact: The typical member and the exception to the rule. (Wilder, 1984).

It seems as if no matter how much progress is made on the path towards equality and tolerance, prejudice and discrimination stubbornly persist all across the world. However, in order to combat prejudice, we must first understand how it works. In this series of Human Nature, we explore the mechanisms behind prejudiced thinking and behaviour through the lens of social psychology.