Role of Group Representativeness in the Generalization Part of the Contact Hypothesis

Autor: Donna M. Desforges, Christopher D. Ratcliff, Marilyn A. Pugh, Tiffiny L. Sia, Nikki C. Scarberry, Charles G. Lord
Rok vydání: 1997
Předmět:
Zdroj: Basic and Applied Social Psychology. 19:183-204
ISSN: 1532-4834
0197-3533
DOI: 10.1207/s15324834basp1902_3
Popis: Allport's (1954) contact hypothesis suggested that cooperative contact with a member(s) of a negatively stereotyped social group might (a) ameliorate specific attitudes toward the member(s) interacted with and (b) generalize to less negative general attitudes toward the group as a whole. Previous studies of cooperative contact demonstrated specific attitude change, but few found generalization. We tested the hypothesis that, with specific attitude change held constant, generalization might be facilitated by cooperative contact with a member who is representative of the group. Participants studied cooperatively with a partner who claimed to belong to 2 equally negative groups, 1 of which the partner ''represented'' more than he or she did the other. In contrast to control conditions, cooperative contact ameliorated attitudes more for the group the partner represented. In addition to presenting empirical evidence on how the contact hypothesis works when the contact person belongs to more than 1 negatively s...
Databáze: OpenAIRE