Interna'onal seminar “Estudios Longitudinales: métodos y perspec'vas para analizar cambios sociales” April 14, 2015 Beneﬁts of extended intergroup contact on the individual and social context level Oliver Christ FernUniversität in Hagen Outline •  Beneﬁts of extended intergroup contact on the individual level –  Does extended contact prepare for direct intergroup contact? •  Beneﬁts of extended intergroup contact on the social context level –  More contact on the social context level shapes intergroup a?tudes over and above individual contact experiences? 2 Collaborators Thanks to… Miles Hewstone, Katharina Schmid, Simon Lolliot (University of Oxford, UK) Uli Wagner (University of Marburg, Germany) Nicole Tausch (University of St Andrews, UK) Hermann Swart (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa) Ananthi Al Ramiah (Yale-‐NUS College, Singapore) Dietlind Stolle (McGill University, Canada) Steve Vertovec (Max Planck InsXtute Gö?ngen, Germany) 3 Beneﬁts of extended intergroup contact on the individual level Intergroup Contact Theory •  Intergroup contact theory (Allport, 1954) is one of the most powerful theoreXcal approaches for improving intergroup a?tudes in mixed socieXes •  There is ample evidence that intergroup contact is capable of reducing intergroup prejudice (Pe?grew & Tropp, 2006): „The meta-‐analyXc results clearly indicate that intergroup contact typically reduces intergroup prejudice. Synthesizing eﬀects from 696 samples, the meta-‐analysis reveals that greater intergroup contact is generally associated with lower levels of prejudice (mean r = .215).“ (p. 766) 5 Extended Contact Theory •  Even extended contact can improve intergroup a?tudes (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-‐Volpe, & Ropp, 1997; Lemmer & Wagner, 2015) •  „…knowledge that an in-‐group member has a close relaXonship with an out-‐group member can lead to more posiXve intergroup a?tudes” (Wright et al., 1997, p. 73) •  Eﬀects of extended contact over and above direct contact eﬀects (e.g., Pe?grew, Christ, Wagner, & Stellmacher, 2007) •  Extended contact most eﬀecXve when individuals live in segregated areas and have only few, or no, direct friendships with outgroup members (Christ et al., 2010) 6 Extended Contact Eﬀects •  However, research has documented extensive, elaborate, and enduring eﬀects of direct contact (see Hewstone, 2009, for a review), and these have not (yet) been shown for extended contact •  Thus, direct, face-‐to-‐face contact under posiXve condiXons should remain the cornerstone of intervenXons aimed at reducing prejudice and improving intergroup relaXons •  Extended contact might, however, be used as a means of preparing people for direct contact (Mazziooa, Rohmann, Wright, De Tezanos-‐Pinto, & Luoerbach, in press; Turner, Hewstone, Voci, et al., 2007) 7 Research aims •  Does extended contact prepare people for direct contact? •  …because it reduces intergroup anxiety? Extended contact -‐ Intergroup anxiety -‐ Direct contact 8 Method • 
Three longitudinal studies from Germany (Studies 1 and 3) and Northern Ireland (Study 2) • 
Study 1 (Xme 1: 2006; Xme 2: 2008) • 
Study 2 (Xme 1: 2006; Xme 2: 2007) • 
Study 3 (Xme 1: 2010; Xme 2: 2011; Xm 3: 2012) –  N = 560 respondents –  Single item measures for extended (“How many of your German friends have friends who are foreigners living in Germany?”) and direct intergroup contact (“How many of your friends are foreigners living in Germany? “) –  Controls: Opportunity for contact and direct contact at Xme 1, demographics –  N = 404 respondents –  MulXple item measures for extended and direct intergroup contact contact as well as intergroup anxiety (e.g., “If you were the only Protestant/Catholic interacXng with Catholics/Protestants, to what extent would you feel?: Nervous”) –  Same controls as in Study 1 – 
– 
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N = 735 Singe item measures for extended and direct intergroup contact Same controls as in Study 1 9 Results Study 1 Time 1 Time 2 .34*** Extended contact Extended contact .21*** .16*** .07*** .12*** -‐ Direct contact .47*** Direct contact 10 Results Study2 Time 1 Time 2 .25*** Extended contact Extended contact -‐.22*** -‐.11 -‐.28*** .29*** Intergroup anxiety -‐32*** Intergroup anxiety .41*** -‐.10* -‐.12** -‐.29*** .19** Direct cross-‐
group friendship .36*** Direct cross-‐
group friendship Indirect eﬀect: b = 0.023, 95% BC CIBootstrap = .004/.057 (χ2 = 558.034, df = 373, p < .001; CFI = .976; RMSEA = .035; SRMR = .068) 11 Results Study3 Cross-‐lagged paths b p β EC 1/2 à Anx 2/3 -‐.07 < .001 -‐.07 Anx 1/2 à DC 2/3 -‐.04 .046 -‐.04 EC 1/2 à DC 2/3 .08 < .001 .08 Anx 1/2 à EC 2/3 -‐.06 .002 -‐.07 DC 1/2 à EC 2/3 .10 < .001 .13 DC 1/2 à Anx 2/3 -‐.06 .003 -‐.06 Indirect eﬀect: b = 0.003, 95% BC CIBootstrap = .001/.009 12 Discussion •  Signiﬁcant relaXon between extended contact and direct contact over Xme •  Intergroup anxiety as one mediaXng mechanism •  Results show that extended intergroup contact might be used as a means of preparing people for direct intergroup contact 13 Beneﬁts of extended intergroup contact on the social context level 14 Social context inﬂuences •  So far, we focused on the individual level (as did most previous research) •  In general, (psychological) research focused mainly on the individual level and has neglected the social context (but see De Tezanos-‐Pinto, Brao, & Brown, 2010; Sarrasin et al., 2013; Wagner et al., 2006) •  The extended contact hypothesis, however, suggests that social contexts, in which people have in general frequent intergroup contact, lead to posiXve intergroup a?tudes over and above the eﬀects of individual contact experiences (direct contact) with outgroup members 15 Contextual eﬀect of intergroup contact Intergroup a?tudes (i.e., prejudice) Do individuals from diﬀerent contexts who have the same amount of intergroup contact diﬀer in their intergroup a?tudes? Then context drives this diﬀerence (contextual eﬀect) -‐-‐ can’t be explained with individual level variables. βW Context A βC βB Context B Context C Direct Intergroup Contact Within Group Eﬀect (Level 1): Between Group Eﬀect (Level 2): Contextual Eﬀect: (Extended Contact) βW = -‐.30 βB = -‐.50 βC = βB -‐ βW = -‐.20 16 Contextual eﬀect of intergroup contact •  Ingroup norms as a possible explanaXon of this contextual eﬀect (e.g., Crandall, Eshleman, & O’Brien, 2002) •  Ingroup members engaged in direct contact with a member of the outgroup should provide a salient and eﬀecXve source of referent informaXonal inﬂuence, demonstraXng posiXve intergroup a?tudes and tolerant ingroup norms 17 Contextual eﬀect of intergroup contact 1)  DemonstraXon of the contextual eﬀect of intergroup contact 2)  TesXng ingroup norms as a possible mechanism for this contextual eﬀect Christ, O., Schmid, K., Lolliot, S., Swart, H., Stolle, D., Tausch, N., Al Ramiah, A., Wagner, U., Vertovec, S., & Hewstone, M. (2014). Contextual eﬀect of posiXve intergroup contact on outgroup prejudice. Proceedings of the Na2onal Academy of Sciences, 111, 3996-‐4000. 18 Contextual eﬀect of intergroup contact •  Cross-‐secXonal survey data from Germany, UK, South Africa, USA, Europe (ESS) •  Longitudinal data from Germany •  All surveys included measures of intergroup contact, intergroup a?tudes, and social norms 19 Contextual eﬀect of intergroup contact •  MulXlevel modeling using Mplus –  Respondents (Level 1) nested in social contexts (Level 2) •  Applying latent contextual models (Lüdtke, Marsh, Robitzsch, & Trautwein, in press; Marsh et al., 2009) –  Latent „mean“ (instead of aggregated group mean) of contact and prejudice within countries à More reliable esXmates of the group mean 20 Results I: Cross-‐secXonal evidence •  Data from England Contact βB = -‐1.465*** Prejudice Social context level Individual level Kontakt βW = -‐0.555*** Vorurteile Contextual eﬀect: βC = βB -‐ βW = -‐0.910** Control variables: age, sex, educaXon, IMD 21 Results II: Cross-‐secXonal evidence 0.663*** Contact Social norms βB = -‐0.187 Data from England -‐2.101*** Prejudice Social context level Individual level Contact βW = -‐0.519*** Prejudice Contextual eﬀect: βC = βB -‐ βW = 0.33 Indirect eﬀect on the social context level: -‐1.393** 22 Control variables: age, sex, educaXon, IMD Results III: Cross-‐secXonal evidence 23 Results IV: Longitudinal evidence Xme 1 Xme 2 Contakt Contact Prejudice βB = -‐0.298** Prejudice Social context level Individual level Contact Prejudice Contact βW = -‐0.055 Prejudice Contextual eﬀect: βC = βB -‐ βW = -‐0.243**, ES = .29 Control variables: age, sex, educaXon, unemployment rate, rate of welfare recipients 24 Results V: Longitudinal evidence Zeitpunkt 2 Zeitpunkt 1 Contact Contact -‐0.130+ Social norms Social norms -‐0.318* βB = -‐0.192** Prejudice Prejudice Social context level Individual level Contact βW = -‐0.031* Contextuel eﬀect: βC = βB -‐ βW = -‐0.161* Indirect eﬀect on the social context level: -‐0.041+ Prejudice Control variables: age, sex, educaXon, unemployment rate, rate of welfare recipients 25 Conclusion •  Contextual eﬀect of intergroup contact (Extended Contact Eﬀect) •  Ingroup norms as a possible mechanism •  Results underline the importance of the social context (and of the simultaneous consideraXon of diﬀerent levels of analysis)! 26 Sum up 27 Sum up •  Longitudinal evidence for the beneﬁts of extended contact for intergroup relaXons –  Extended contact prepares for direct contact –  Improves intergroup a?tudes over and above individual contact experiences (and on a more borader level) •  Our research underlines the importance of the social context in general and social norms in parXcular •  One strength of our research is that we always used data from a diverse range of social contexts (e.g., Protestants versus Catholics in Northern Ireland, Turkish and Greek Cypriots, Black and White respondents in South Africa) •  Clearly, more research is needed (e.g., when does diversity in social contexts undermine harmonious intergroup relaXons; see Putnam, 2007) 28