Intergroup Contact, Intergroup Anxiety, and Attitudes towards the Opposing Group in Divided Society

The negative attitudes and negative emotions play a key role in maintaining the hostilities between the groups of a divided society. Evidence suggests that intergroup contact can improve or worsen intergroup attitudes. The current study examined the mediating role of intergroup anxiety on quantity of interethnic contact and acculturation attitudes and emotional responses to contradictory conflict narratives in a divided society with a background of armed conflict in the past. The study was conducted among 202 Albanians and 239 Serbs in Kosovo. The results indicate that as more as they meet members of the opposing group the less they feel intergroup anxiety and the more they show acculturation attitudes towards the opposing group among both Albanians and Serbs. However, such mediating role of intergroup anxiety was not found on emotional responses to contradictory conflict narratives, except among Serbs who live in certain enclaves. The findings are discussed in terms of context, reconciliation, and maintenance of frozen conflict.

Intergenerational Contact Experiences and Their Relation to Ageism as a Multidimensional Construct

Research on intergroup contact suggests that negative contact experiences affect cognitive representations such as stereotypes more strongly than positive contact experiences. To comprehensively examine the full effect of intergroup contact, the valence of the contact experience as well as the affective and cognitive dimensions of prejudice should be assessed. In ageism research, previous studies typically focused only on contact of positive valence and were limited to the perspectives of younger individuals on older adults. Primary objective of this study is to examine both positive and negative contact frequency and their relation to affective and cognitive dimensions of ageism from the perspectives of younger adults between the age of 18 and 25 (study 1) and older adults between the age of 60 and 92 (study 2). Consistent with previous research on intergroup contact, our results confirm that both types of contact were similarly predictive of affective facets of prejudice. However, only in study 2 that assessed older adults’ agreement with contemporary stereotypes about young men and women, negative compared to positive contact frequency proved to be a stronger predictor of the cognitive dimension of ageism. Our findings emphasize the importance of focusing on all dimensions of prejudice and highlight the need to consider the perspectives of young and old in ageism research.

Intergroup Contact as a Potential Path to Neutralize the Detrimental Effect of National Identification on Xenophobia in Germany

Proceeding globalization and the increase in global mobility entail that a growing proportion of people in economically developed countries have a migration background, so that cultural diversity has become an integral characteristic of many societies. Consequently, national identifications and attitudes towards immigrants are gaining importance in both international and intra-societal contexts. Previous studies revealed that in some countries, including Germany, national identification is associated with negative attitudes towards outgroups. In the present article, the interplay between national identification and intergroup contact is analyzed, with xenophobia as the criterion. The study is based on a cross-sectional survey amongst members of the majority population in Germany. It was predicted and found that the association between national identification and xenophobia is moderated by intergroup contact. There was only an association between national identification and xenophobia in participants with below-average or average levels of contact, whilst for those with above-average levels of contact, there was no significant association. Thus, the results point to the importance of contact experiences as a path to neutralize the effects of national identification on xenophobia, possibly by assisting in a redefinition of national belonging.