Can cross-group contact turn advantaged group members into allies? The role of inequality-delegitimizing contact and interpersonal connection

Previous research shows that positive contact with members of disadvantaged groups can have positive, neutral, or negative effects on advantaged group members’ support of actions for social change towards more equality. The present work provides an experimental test of this effect and introduces two moderators which highlight the fundamental role of (a) communication about perception of the illegitimacy of intergroup inequality and (b) interpersonal connection with the contact partner. In two experiments ( N = 88 and N = 192), first-time cross-group contact was initiated between members of two universities that differ on social status. Results revealed that cross-group contact per se did not increase advantaged group members’ solidarity-based action to reduce inequality. However, cross-group contact did increase advantaged group members’ solidarity-based actions when the disadvantaged group partner engaged in inequality-delegitimizing contact by describing the intergroup inequality as illegitimate and when the advantaged group member reported a strong interpersonal connection with the disadvantaged contact partner.

Emotions in Intergroup Contact: Incidental and Integral Emotions' Effects on Interethnic Bias Are Moderated by Emotion Applicability and Subjective Agency

This research draws from three distinct lines of research on the link between emotions and intergroup bias as springboard to integrative, new hypotheses. Past research suggests that emotions extrinsic to the outgroup (or “incidental”), and intrinsic to the outgroup (or “integral”), produce valence-congruent effects on intergroup bias when relevant or “applicable” to the outgroup (e.g., incidental/integral anger and ethnic outgroups). These emotions produce valence incongruent effects when irrelevant or “non-applicable” to the outgroup (e.g., incidental/integral sadness and happiness, and ethnic outgroups). Internally valid and ecologically sound tests of these contrasting effects are missing; hence we examined them experimentally in meaningful settings of interethnic contact. To this end, we hybridized established research paradigms in mood and intergroup contact research; this approach enabled us to use same materials and induction methods to instigate incidental and integral emotions in a single research design. In Experiment 1, White Australian students (N = 93) in in vivo real face-to-face contact with an ethnic tutor in their classroom displayed less interethnic bias when incidentally sad (vs. happy) or integrally happy (vs. sad). In Experiment 2, White American males' (N = 492) anti-Arab bias displayed divergent effects under incidental vs. integral (non-applicable) sadness/happiness and similar effects under incidental vs. integral (applicable) anger. The role of perceptions of agency in the emotion-inducing situation is also explored, tested, and explained drawing from mainstream emotion theory. As expected, integral and incidental applicable emotions caused valence congruent effects, at the opposite sides of the subjective agency spectrum, by encouraging the generalization of dislike from the outgroup contact partner to the outgroup as a whole. On the other hand, incidental-non-applicable emotions caused valence-incongruent effects on bias, under high agency conditions, by encouraging (non-partner-centered) heuristic processing. Because of the improved methodology, these effects can be regarded as genuine and not the byproduct of methodological artifacts. This theory-driven and empirically sound analysis of the interplay between emotion source, emotion applicability and subjective agency in intergroup contact can increase the precision of emotion-based bias reduction strategies by deepening understanding of the emotion conditions that lead to intergroup bias attenuation vs. exacerbation.

The Influence of the Metal Microstructure on the Breakdown Mechanism of Schottky Diodes

In this paper, the influence of the microstructure of a metal on the breakdown mechanism of diodes with a Schottky barrier is studied. It is shown that in electronic processes occurring in the contact between a metal and a semi-conductor, the metal plays a very active role and is a more important contact partner than a semiconductor. Unlike the known mechanisms of breakdown of diodes (avalanche, tunnel and thermal), another mechanism is proposed in this paper - the geometric mechanism of the reverse current flow of Schottky diodes made using a metal with a poly-crystalline structure. The polycrystallinity of a metal transforms a homogeneous contact into a complex system, which consists of parallel-connected multiple elementary contacts having different properties and parameters.

Review Partners' Reactions to Contact Partner Risk Judgments of Prospective Clients

As a part of their risk management strategy, large audit firms have established a second partner review process during client screening. It is unclear, however, whether review partners are biased by the engagement risk assessment that is provided to them by a contact partner as a part of this process. Of particular interest are cases where the contact partner's engagement risk assessment is overly favorable when compared to the underlying evidence. We report the results of an experiment where approximately one-half of the review partners received an engagement risk assessment that was overly favorable when compared to the underlying evidence, while the other half of the review partners received an assessment that was more consistent with the client data provided. We examined the effect of this manipulated difference on review partner engagement risk assessments, acceptance judgments, fee judgments, and justification activity. Results from a sample of 78 audit partners reveal that, on average, they were not influenced by differences in the contact partner's assessment when rendering their own engagement risk assessments. However, the acceptance and fee judgments of the partners who received overly favorable risk assessments were more conservative than those of the partners who received a more consistent assessment. In addition, justification activity was greater for the group who received overly favorable judgments. These results imply that a second partner review appears to aid auditing firms in avoiding overly risky clients during the acceptance process.

The threat from without

Of greatest importance in ethnic folklore are the recognised and unrecognised elements that are used when founding identity on tradition. For the aim of ethnic identification is to note and know the cultural features that connect me with people like me and separate me from people who are not like me. Every group and each of its members thus needs an opponent, a contact partner in order to identify itself. What about the Lapps? The ethnocentric values of ethnic folklore provide a model for this generalising comparison. 'They' are a potential danger, are unknown, strange, a threat from beyond the fells. They are sufficiently common for the group's ethnic feeling. It is here that we find tradition, folk tales, describing the community's traditional enemies, describing the threat from without, engendering preconceived ideas, conflicts and even war. The Lapps have never had an empire, they have never conquered others' territory, they have never engaged in systematic warfare against other peoples. For this reason Lapp tradition lacks an offensive ethnic folklore proper with emphasis on aggression, power, violence, heroism and an acceptance of the ideology of subordinating others. On the contrary,Lapp folklore is familiar with a tradition in which strangers are always threatening the Lapps' existence, plundering their territories, burning and destroying. The Lapp has always had to fight against alien powers, to give in or to outwit the great and powerful enemy. In the Lapp tradition the staalo represents an outside threat that cannot be directly concretised. If foes are regarded as concrete enemies that may be defeated in physical combat or that can be made to look ridiculous, a staalo is more mythical, more supranormal, more vague. One basic feature of the staalo tradition is that it only appears as one party to a conflict. The stories about the Lapp who succeeds in driving away a staalo threatening the community, to outwit the stupid giant or to kill him with his own weapon come close to the myth of the beginning of time when a Lapp managed to secure his existence and defend his community against an outside threat. Without the proto-Lapp battle against evil, the community would not have had a chance to exist, the right to live in its area, as the community does nowadays.