Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In its simplest form this proposes that bringing members of different groups into contact with one another will reduce any preexisting prejudice between them and result in more positive intergroup attitudes and stereotypes . This idea has a long history in social psychology but it was first properly systematized by Gordon Allport (1954). He recognized that contact alone would bring about little positive attitude change and would often worsen relations between groups. Instead he proposed a number of conditions that should be met before contact could be expected to effect positive change. Of these, the most important were that interactions in the contact situation should involve equal status participants cooperating over common goals in a social climate in which there was clear institutional support for integration policies. These ideas were later refined, most notably by Stuart Cook ( see Miller & Brewer, 1984; Stephan & Brigham, 1985), who also emphasized the importance of contact facilitating the development of close interpersonal relationships between members of different groups. The rationale for these delimiting conditions is several fold. Equal status contact is important to permit the possibility of stereo-type-disconfirming information (that minority group members are of equal ability and worth to those in the dominant group) to be processed by the (prejudiced) ... log in or subscribe to read full text