From Contact to Enact: Reducing Prejudice Toward Physical Disability Using Engagement Strategies

The contact hypothesis has dominated work on prejudice reduction and is often described as one of the most successful theories within social psychology. The hypothesis has nevertheless been criticized for not being applicable in real life situations due to unobtainable conditions for direct contact. Several indirect contact suggestions have been developed to solve this “application challenge.” Here, we suggest a hybrid strategy of both direct and indirect contact. Based on the second-person method developed in social psychology and cognition, we suggest working with an engagement strategy as a hybrid hypothesis. We expand on this suggestion through an engagement-based intervention, where we implement the strategy in a theater performance and investigate the effects on prejudicial attitudes toward people with physical disabilities. Based on the results we reformulate our initial engagement strategy into the Enact (Engagement, Nuancing, and Attitude formation) hypothesis. To deal with the application challenge, this hybrid hypothesis posits two necessary conditions for prejudice reduction. Interventions should: (1) work with engagement to reduce prejudice, and (2) focus on the second-order level of attitudes formation. Here the aim of the prejudice reduction is not attitude correction, but instead the nuancing of attitudes.

A Qualitative Examination of Dialogical Elements in Anti-Racist Deep Canvassing Conversations

This community-based action research study aimed to better understand the dialogical process underlying deep canvassing (Denizet-Lewis, 2016), a social justice intervention technique for engaging in nonconfrontational discussions designed to constructively challenge prejudicial attitudes. Previously, it has been suggested, but not demonstrated, that cognitive dissonance and perspective taking may serve as the mechanisms of change that facilitate shifts in the process of these dialogues. In the current study, 15 anti-racist deep canvassing conversations with White individuals were facilitated by White canvassers working with Showing Up for Racial Justice New York City. A dialogical approach was used to address the question of what intrapsychic and interpersonal processes occurred in these conversations on the topic of reparations. Themes included Interpersonal Agreement, Intervoice Dynamics, Authoring the Self and the Other, and Bringing in Personal Experience. We discuss the results and implications for future action research with prejudice reduction interventions.

The Relationship Between Racial Prejudice and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality Risk at the State and County Level

Background Robust evidence shows that perceived discrimination among stigmatized groups is associated with negative health outcomes. However, little work has examined whether holding prejudiced attitudes toward others is associated with health risks for prejudiced individuals. Purpose The study is a test of the hypothesis that holding prejudicial attitudes has negative health implications for both the holders and targets of prejudicial attitudes. Methods The project connected data (2003–2015) at the state and county levels on average explicit and implicit prejudice held by White, Black, and Native American respondents from Project Implicit with data on cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality for White, Black, and Native American individuals from the CDC Wonder database. Separate analyses regressed implicit and explicit prejudice on CVD mortality risk for White, Black, and Native American individuals, respectively. Results At the state level, among White individuals, explicit prejudice toward Blacks (β = .431, p =.037) and implicit prejudice toward Native Americans (β = .283, p = .045) were positively associated with greater CVD mortality for Whites. At the county level, White individuals’ implicit prejudice toward Blacks (β =.081, p = .015) and Black individuals’ implicit prejudice toward Whites (β = −.066, p = .018) were associated with greater CVD mortality for Whites. Also, at the county-level, among Black individuals, higher implicit (β = −.133, p < .001) and explicit (β = −.176, p < .001) prejudice toward Whites predicted CVD mortality for Blacks. Moreover, explicit prejudice held by White individuals was positively associated with Blacks’ county-level CVD deaths (β = .074, p = .036). Conclusions This evidence suggests that across racial groups, holding racial prejudice is associated with CVD mortality risk for both the prejudiced and the stigmatized groups. Future research should verify the reliability of this potential public health effect with additional work explicating moderators and mediators to inform surveillance and interventions.

Reducing Prejudice Through Promoting Cross-Group Friendships

Around the globe, individuals are affected by exclusion, discrimination, and prejudice targeting individuals from racial, ethnic, and immigrant backgrounds as well as crimes based on gender, nationality, and culture (United Nations General Assembly, 2016). Unfortunately, children are often the targeted victims (Costello & Dillard, 2019). What is not widely understood is that the intergroup biases underlying systemic racism start long before adulthood with children displaying notable signs of intergroup bias, sometimes before entering grade school. Intergroup bias refers to the tendency to evaluate members of one’s own group more favorably than someone not identified with one’s group and is typically associated with prejudicial attitudes. Children are both the victims and the perpetrators of bias. In this review, we provide evidence of how biases emerge in childhood, along with an analysis of the significant role of intergroup friendships on enhancing children’s well-being and reducing prejudice in childhood. The review focuses predominantly on the context of race, with the inclusion of several other categories, such as nationality and religion. Fostering positive cross-group friendships in childhood helps to address the negative long-term consequences of racism, discrimination, and prejudice that emerges in childhood and continues through to adulthood.

Interpersonal and Intersubjective Alienation in Social Stigmatization and Depression

The subjective experience of social stigma has been widely researched in terms of discrimination, rejection, isolation, etc. These are commonly understood within the traditional individualistic framework of affective experience and sociality, which fails to address the transformative effects of social stigma on how one experiences the social realm and the own self in general. Phenomenology and recent work on the relationality of affective experience acknowledge the central role interpersonal interactions play in subjectivity and offer a suitable approach towards addressing the complexity of the subjective experience of social stigma. Focussing on autobiographical accounts, I propose that the experience of social stigmatization is characterized by an affective atmosphere of interpersonal alienation. Its counterpart, an atmosphere of belonging, is closely related to social empathy, which is eroded by prejudicial attitudes and stereotypes. The breakdown of social empathy establishes a peculiar form of relationless relationality that radically transforms one’s subjectivity. The transformation of subjectivity is structurally similar to disturbances of intersubjectivity in psychopathological conditions such as depression and feelings of disconnectedness, loneliness, and even shame are common in both cases.

Social Exclusion and Ethnic Segregation in Schools: The Role of Teacher's Ethnic Prejudice

Using data on primary school children and their teachers, we show that teachers who hold prejudicial attitudes towards an ethnic group create socially and spatially segregated classrooms. Leveraging a natural experiment where newly arrived refugee children are randomly assigned to teachers within schools, we find that teachers’ ethnic prejudice, measured by an implicit association test, significantly lowers the prevalence of inter-ethnic social links, increases homophilic ties among host children, and puts refugee children at a higher risk of peer violence. Our results highlight the role of teachers in achieving integrated schools in a world of increasing ethnic diversity.

Weight and Body Image Perceptions in Nutrition and Dietetics University Students

Stereotypical and prejudicial attitudes towards people considered overweight or obese are documented in professionals ranging from physicians, nurses, fitness and general nutrition professionals, and registered dietitian nutritionists (RDN) and may introduce barriers to equitable care. To identify the prevalence of anti-fat attitudes (AFA); fat phobia (FPS); and body appreciation scores (BA) in nutrition and dietetics’ students (ND) and non-nutrition and dietetics’ students (NND) through a cross-sectional design. During 2018, students (n=297) from two California State Universities completed a survey including three validated instruments. Additionally, height, weight, and waist circumference were collected using NHANES procedures. A series of ANCOVA’s and correlation coefficients were computed. Significant differences existed in BA between ND (M=3.61, SD=0.66) and NND students (M=3.81, SD=0.70); t(288) = 2.49, p=0.013. Scores indicated existing anti-fat attitudes and fat phobia. Significant positive correlations existed between FPS and anthropometrics. Weight related perceptions were identified. A need exists for a fundamental evidence-based training specifically focused on knowledge and awareness related to health metrics and social justice pedagogy to help RDN work unbiasedly with patients of all shapes.

Fear and cultural background drive sexual orientation prejudice in France

Sexual stereotyping and its negative consequences remain major issues in Western societies. Sexual prejudice is often nurtured by the socio-cultural background in which individuals grow up, making differences in sexual prejudice especially visible in multicultural societies. In France, one example of such a multicultural society with a high number of French citizens with recent migratory background from Maghreb, the socio-cultural basis of sexual prejudice has largely remained unexplored. Here, we report results from an experimental study investigating sexual stereotyping in France. We base our analyses on an elicited corpus of spontaneous speech samples. We consider in particular the effects of the participants’ cultural background (France vs. Maghreb), age and gender on the expression of prejudicial attitudes. Specifically, we tested in a context-sensitive sentiment analysis approach which attitudes (negative vs. positive) and emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust) were voiced. We find strong effects of cultural background and gender both on the frequency of negative vs. positive attitudes expressed and on associated emotion categories, namely that male Maghrebian participants were more negative and conveyed more fear in their speech samples. The results are discussed in the context of current diversity approaches in France and their implications for potential prejudice regulation strategies.

Defended subjectivity in service-learning:a psychosocial analysis of students’ talk about service-learning in psychology

The purpose of this qualitative study was to analyse students’ talk about their service-learning experiences in psychology, in South Africa, from a psychosocial perspective. The research aims to identify dominant and subjugated discourses about service-learning in psychology, and to explore why students invest in particular discourses over others. Furthermore, the research aims to explore the intersubjective contexts that mediate students’ talk about their service-learning and their emotional investments in the discourses employed in their talk, drawing on the concept of mentalization. Eight psychology students were interviewed toward the end of their participation in a service-learning psychology honours course. Transcripts from the interviews as well as entries from students’ reflective journals were analysed using a psychosocial methodology. The key findings from this research point to the ways in which students oscillate between employing two competing sets of discourses about their service learning. At times, students drew on what I have referred to as a ‘discourse of rapture’, characterised by fascination with the ‘other’ and the maintenance of power imbalances. This discourse draws on a liberal traditional discourse of learning and a charity discourse of service-learning. In other parts of their talk, students draw on what I have called a ‘discourse of ruptura’, characterised by an inward curiosity about the outward fascination with the ‘other’. This discourse draws on constructivist accounts of service-learning. Findings suggest that students’ emotional investments in discourses of service-learning are mediated by defensive positions caused by the anxieties incurred in service-learning contexts. An important consideration to take forward from this research is the way in which anxieties in service-learning experiences may be contained (or not), and to be aware of the problematic outcomes that may arise from not containing anxieties, such as the perpetuation of prejudicial attitudes and othering. The intersectionality of ‘race’ and disability in the specific service learning programme under investigation in this study is an important consideration in implementing careful supervision of programmes such as this one, so that students’ raptue with the ‘other’ is not compounded and reinforced by the service-learning experience.

COVID-19 Fake News and Attitudes toward Asian Americans

This study examined the relationship between an inability to identify COVID-19 fake news, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), soci- odemographic factors (i.e., race, biological sex), and the level of xenophobia along with anti-Asian American sentiment. Participants included 100 male and female college students. Participants answered questions about their social media usage and were asked to identify social media news posts as either false or accurate. Participants also completed a series of measures regarding their attitudes toward Asian Americans and xenophobia. Soci- odemographic variables of race and sex were examined as well as partici- pants levels of RWA. Participants were frequent social media users, with many having multiple social media accounts. Almost twenty-one percent of participants were unable to identify COVID-19 fake news. Higher rates of xenophobia were found among White participants. Male, compared to female, participants were more likely to report experiencing kinship with Asian Americans. Both RWA and an inability to identify COVID-19 fake news was associated with increased prejudicial attitudes. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.