Reducing prejudice via direct, extended, and imagined intergroup contact
- When?
- Monday 9 March 2009, 17:00 to 18:30
- Where?
- Room 04AD00 (AD building) University of Surrey
- Open to:
- Staff, Students, Public
- Speaker:
- Dr Rhiannon Turner
Dr Rhiannon Turner, University of Leeds
Extensive research over the past fifty years has shown that contact between members of different groups is, under optimal conditions, effective at reducing intergroup prejudice. My research considers whether several unique types of intergroup contact might have particular benefits for intergroup relations: cross-group friendship, extended contact, and imagined contact. I will talk about a series of cross-sectional studies, conducted in the context of South Asian – White relations in the UK, which consider how and why cross-group friendship, having friends in a different group from oneself, and extended contact, the knowledge that other ingroup members have outgroup friends, can help to reduce prejudice. I will then discuss some experimental research which shows that simply imagining intergroup contact has some intriguing benefits for intergroup relations. The implications of these findings for developing effective interventions to reduce prejudice will be discussed.