According to the Contact Hypothesis, positive encounters with outgroup members have the potential of reducing prejudice toward the whole outgroup (Allport, 1954). Research has widely demonstrated the effectiveness of contact in ameliorating intergroup relations across a variety of situations and cultural contexts (Brown & Hewstone, 2005; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006); research has further shown that positive contact reduces, besides blatant prejudice, also subtle and implicit forms of prejudice. Recent developments of the Contact Hypothesis investigated the mediators of the contact-reduced prejudice relationship. The recent meta-analysis by Pettigrew and Tropp (2008) underlined that affective mediators, such as reduced intergroup anxiety and increased empathy, have stronger effects than cognitive mediators, such as outgroup knowledge.
In four correlational studies, we explored the relationship between different forms of contact and prejudice toward immigrants in Italy. Concerning the mediators of the relationship between contact and prejudice, we considered the affective mediators identified by Pettigrew and Tropp (2008): intergroup anxiety, namely the anticipation of negative psychological or behavioral consequences deriving from intergroup interactions (Stephan & Stephan, 1985), and emotional empathy, namely an other-oriented emotional response, congruent with the perception of her/his welfare (Batson et al., 1997). Besides empathy and anxiety, we considered a more recently proposed mediator, namely outgroup trust. Trust consists in positive expectations about intentions and behaviors of other persons or groups (Kramer & Carnevale, 2001), and is associated to positive attitudes and cooperative behaviors with outgroup members.
As regards prejudice, we considered both explicit attitudes toward immigrants, and more indirect prejudice measures, i.e. subtle prejudice and a scale measuring the percentage of crimes in Italy attributed to immigrants. Recent theoretical approaches further studied a very subtle form of prejudice, that consists in attributing more secondary emotions and uniquely human traits to ingroup than to outgroup members (infrahumanization; Leyens, Demoulin, Vaes, Gaunt, & Paladino, 2007). Thus, we also considered humanity attributions to ingroup and outgroup members and hypothesized, consistently with empirical evidence (Brown, Eller, Leeds, & Stace, 2007; Capozza, Trifiletti, Vezzali, & Favara, 2012), that positive intergroup contact could increase the attribution of uniquely human characteristics to outgroup members.
In the first study, 174 Italian participants completed a questionnaire including: measures of quantity of meaningful contact with immigrants (Voci & Hewstone, 2003); measures of attitude toward immigrants (Voci & Hewstone, 2003), subtle prejudice (adapted from Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995), attribution of uniquely human and non uniquely human traits to ingroup and outgroup members (Capozza, et al., 2012), estimate of the percentage of crimes in Italy committed by immigrants (Pagotto, Voci, & Maculan, 2010); as emotional processes, measures of intergroup anxiety (adapted from Stephan & Stephan, 1985), emotional empathy (based on Batson et al., 1997), and outgroup trust (Voci, 2006). We used Structural Equation Modelling with latent variables (Lisrel, Jöreskog & Sörbom, 2004) to test the effects of contact; in the model, quantity of contact was the predictor; empathy, anxiety, and trust were the mediators, and attitudes, prejudice, crimes rating, and uniquely human traits attributed to immigrants were the criterion variables. Contact with immigrants led, through reduced intergroup anxiety and increased empathy and trust, to the reduction of prejudice and crimes estimate, to the improvement of outgroup attitudes and to greater attribution of uniquely human traits to immigrants. The first study thus confirmed that meaningful direct contact with outgroup members reduced various forms of prejudice, through affective mediators.
Anyway, direct contact with outgroup members is not always attainable and frequent; in highly segregated settings, indeed, people belonging to different groups may not have the chance to develop deep relationships with outgroup members; moreover, even when contact is possible, people may seek friendships among ingroup members, and not form cross-group friendships (see, e.g., Stearns, Buchmann, & Bonneau, 2009). In these situations, indirect forms of contact may have important effects on intergroup attitudes. Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe and Ropp (1997) proposed that extended contact, namely the knowledge that an ingroup member has an outgroup friend, may reduce prejudice toward the whole outgroup. Experimental and correlational studies demonstrated that extended contact is effective for prejudice reduction toward various outgroups, and has significant effects controlling for direct contact (Turner, Hewstone, Voci, Paolini, & Christ, 2007). Research has also shown that observing cross-group interactions through mass media may affect prejudice and intergroup relationships. Mutz and Goldman (2010), in their review of the effects of exposure to mass media on prejudice, underlined that mass media are the main source of information about outgroups.
In Study 2, thus, we investigated, besides direct contact effects, also the effects of extended contact with immigrants and of contact through mass media. Concerning contact through mass media, we chose to consider separately contact through TV news and newspapers and contact through movies and TV series. In the second study, 201 Italian participants completed a questionnaire containing, besides measures included in the questionnaire of Study 1, measures of extended contact (Wright et al., 1997; Turner, Hewstone, Voci, & Vonofakou, 2008), contact through TV news and newspapers, and contact through movies and TV series. We tested a regression model with latent variables; predictors were quantity of the four forms of contact (direct contact, extended contact, contact through TV news and newspapers, contact through movies and TV series); mediators and outcome variables were the same of the model tested in Study 1. Confirming results of Study 1, direct contact ameliorated attitudes, enhanced the attribution of uniquely human traits to immigrants, and reduced prejudice and crimes estimate, through the reduction of intergroup anxiety and the increase of empathy and trust. Extended contact ameliorated outgroup attitudes and reduced prejudice through outgroup trust. Contact through TV news and newspapers instead increased all forms of prejudice, partially via increased intergroup anxiety. Finally, contact through movies and TV series had a positive direct effect on the attribution of uniquely human traits to immigrants. Thus, Study 2 showed that direct contact, extended contact, and contact through movies and TV series were related to lower prejudice, while contact through TV news and newspapers increased prejudice.
Recent meta-analysis and theorizations on intergroup contact (Pettigrew, 2008; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006) underlined the lack of research on the negative episodes of contact, and on comparing the effects of positive and negative contact. Indeed, in most of the published studies, contact measures concerned quantity and quality of contact, and quantity of cross-group friendships; through these procedures, it would not be possible to analyze the role of contact episodes perceived as positive or negative.
In the third study, thus, we considered the distinction between positive and negative episodes of the contact forms analyzed in Study 2. Participants were 330 Italian adults and students, who completed a questionnaire containing, besides the prejudice and emotions measures included in the questionnaires of the previous studies, measures of quantity of positive and negative episodes of direct contact with immigrants, quantity of positive and negative episodes of extended contact with immigrants, quantity of positive and negative episodes of contact through TV news and newspapers, quantity of positive and negative episodes of contact through movies and TV series. Preliminary analyses showed that positive direct contact episodes were more frequent than negative ones; we found the same pattern for extended contact and contact through movies and TV series, while negative episodes of contact through TV news and newspapers were far more frequent than positive ones. We tested a regression model with latent variables, where predictors were quantity of positive and negative episodes of the above mentioned forms of contact (eight predictors); mediators were intergroup anxiety, trust, and empathy; the outcome variables were attitudes, subtle prejudice, crimes rating, and uniquely human traits attributed to immigrants. The contact forms which were most influent on prejudice reduction were positive direct contact and positive extended contact; they decreased all the forms of prejudice, and the mediation involved the three emotions (reduced intergroup anxiety, increased empathy and trust). Also contact through TV news and newspapers was very influential: positive contact through TV news and newspapers ameliorated attitudes and increased outgroup humanization, while the negative episodes were related to stronger prejudice, influencing all the outcome measures. It is noteworthy that positive direct contact was related to reduced prejudice more than negative direct contact was related to increased prejudice; the same pattern emerged for extended contact and for contact through movies and TV series, while negative contact through TV news and newspapers was a stronger predictor of prejudice than positive contact through TV news and newspapers of reduced prejudice.
In the fourth study we considered, besides variables included in the questionnaire of the third study, implicit attitudes toward immigrants. Participants were 197 Italian adults and students, who completed an online questionnaire, containing the same measures of the questionnaire used in Study 3, followed by a Single Category IAT (SC-IAT, Karpinski & Steinman, 2006). In the SC-IAT score, higher values reflected more positive implicit attitudes; mean score of the SC-IAT was negative, indicating negative implicit attitudes. We applied regression analysis, to test the effects of the contact measures on prejudice indexes. Positive direct contact, positive extended contact, and positive contact through movies and TV series were strong predictors of reduced explicit prejudice; positive direct contact and positive contact through movies were also weakly related to better implicit outgroup attitudes. Negative direct contact and negative contact through TV news were instead related to worse explicit outgroup attitudes. As in Study 3, positive direct contact, positive extended contact, and positive contact through movies and TV series were more influential, respectively, than negative direct contact, negative extended contact, and negative contact through movies and TV series; concerning contact through TV news and newspapers, instead, the negative episodes increased prejudice more than the positive episodes reduced prejudice.
Taken together, results of the four studies showed that:
1. All the contact forms we considered (direct contact, extended contact, contact through TV news and newspapers, contact through movies and TV series) have significant effects on prejudice and on intergroup attitudes. The most influent form of contact is direct contact.
2. It is useful to consider separately positive and negative episodes of contact, which have independent effects.
3. Direct contact and extended contact are usually positive, and the positive episodes of these forms of contact have stronger effects on prejudice reduction, compared to the effects of negative episodes on increased prejudice.
4. To improve the relationships between Italians and immigrants, it could be useful to favor meaningful direct contact, given then, when direct contact occurs, positive episodes are more frequent and more influential than negative episodes.
5. Also programs basing on extended contact could be effective: it would thus be useful to favor social networks with individuals belonging to various outgroups; moreover, programs basing on reading romances or tales portraying cross-group friendships could be implemented in schools.
6. Contact through TV news and newspapers is usually negative; only for this contact form, negative episodes are more influential than positive episodes. It would thus be useful to provide guidelines to mass media, to avoid that the conveyed information increase prejudice toward immigrants.
7. Contact through movies and TV series is generally positive, and is mainly related to the perception of immigrants as fully human, and to better implicit attitudes toward immigrants
