Direct and indirect intergroup friendship effects: Testing the

Moderating Role of the Affective-Cognitive bases of prejudice.

Article presented by: Tisha Bourquin, Able DeLion,

Nathaniel Gonzales, Jaime Perez,

Theory

Prejudice towards a person or group contain two sources of response affective or cognitive, and each of these types of responses very from situation to situation.

Through a three cross correlational studies Paolini, Hewstone and Cairns tested the moderating factors of affective-cognitive and the role that they play in relationships of intergroup friendships, an intimate form of contact, and outgroup prejudice.(Paolini,Hewstone, & Cairns 2007)

Stereotypes: Descriptive & Prescriptive

Fiske (1993)

• Descriptive Stereotypes- tells how most people in a group behave, think, and feel.

• Prescriptive Stereotypes- how groups should think, feel, and act.

Reducing prejudice via intergorup friendship

• Types of friendship – Direct friendship say one person of an ingroup is a personal

friend with someone from an out group. An example is say you are Hispanic and you are friends with a person who is Persian. Your friendship with that other person is direct personal relationship.

– Indirect friendship say one person of an ingroup is a has a friend in the same ingroup who is friends with a person in a outgroup. The one person in that ingroup knows of his friends acquaintance in the outgroup. That person has a indirect friendship with that individual in the outgroup. An example is say you are Hispanic and you have another friend that is Hispanic as well but he/she has a friend that is Persian and your friend introduces him/her to you. You now have and indirect friendship between the Persian individual and yourself.

Reducing prejudice via intergorup friendship cont’

• In a past study done by Pettigrew it was found that reductions of outgroup prejudice might be achieved especially by promoting direct friendship between members of rival groups. It is also the case in that of indirect friendship as well.

• This was done by seeing how the dominant groups of a society interacted with those of a smaller minorities in that same culture.

• It was found that the more the dominant groups interacted on a one to one basis with those of those in individual in minorities of that culture, the less likelihood of prejudicial actions would take place.

Exploring Moderation: A case for the affective-cognitive bases of prejudice.

• The contact and attitude literatures converge in suggesting that:– The affective-cognitive bases of prejudiced attitudes

moderate the effects of intergroup contact– This moderational influence for direct contact is the

opposite for indirect contact

Exploring Moderation Continued…

• Experiences of direct (generic & intimate contact) are affective

• Experiences of indirect contact are cognitive.– Stangor & his colleagues (1991) stated that

“affective responses are based on direct and therefore highly self-relevant experiences w/ the target group, where as cognitive responses may often be learned from secondary sources.”

..continued

• Attitudes with predominantly affective bases are more easily changed after affective experiences

• As are attitudes with predominantly cognitive bases after cognitive experience

Hypothesis

• The researchers predicted that– Direct friendship effects to be larger with

outgroup and among individuals who are close to the predominantly affective edn of our theoretical continuum

– Indirect friendship effects to be larger with outgroups and among individual who are close to the predominantly cognitive end of the continuum

Study 1 Purpose

• The purpose of study 1 was to test moderation by assessing variations of prejudice basis across target out groups.

• So in this study 339 participants were used. From these participants researchers derive 4 groups that would settle in the affect-cognitive continuum as target social groups to test the hypotheses.

Study 1 Target Groups

Elderly

Mature-Aged Students

Vegetarians

Engineering Students

• From these four groups each is used in a cross-sectional study to assess each groups:– Direct Friendships– Indirect Friendships– Outgroup prejudice

The Predications for Study 1

• Experimenters expected direct friendship effects to be relatively large with outgroups having strong affective responding and to be relatively small with outgroups having strong cognitive responding.

• Second for indirect friendship experimenters expected the opposite to be true, that is, these effects to be relatively large with cognitive outgroups and to be relatively small with affective outgroup.

Study 1Procedure and Questionnaire

• Participants were assigned to complete

one of four versions of a questionnaire• It assessed their perceptions of and

experiences of the Ss with one of the four social groups:– Elderly people– Mature aged students– Vegetarians– Engineering students

Study 1 Predictor Variable

• Intergroup friendships were assessed by asking Ss to indicate the number of friends that they had in the outgroup (direct) then the number of ingroup friends that have friends in the outgroup (indirect).

• The scale gauged the extended network of vicarious intergroup relations in University setting.

Scales used study 1• Ingroup• None• 1• 2• 3• 4• 5• 6• 7• 8• 9• 10• More than 10

• Outgroup • None• 1• 5• 10• 15• 20• 25• 30• 35• 40• 45• 50• Or more than 50

Outcome variable OUTGROUP PREJUDICE MEASURE USING 3 SCALES• Respondents indicated their overall feelings towards the target

outgroup on a feeling thermometer:– 0 = extremely unfavorable, 100 = extremely favorable

• Second, on six 100 mm bipolar scales of a General Evaluation Scale – Warm-cold, negative-positive, friendly-hostile, suspicious-trusting,

respecting-contempt, and admiration-disgust.• Finally subjects completed 4 items adapting from Pettigrew and

Mercers The subtle Prejudice scale.– Indication whether they had ever felt sympathy or admiration for the

group.– Weather they thought the members of the group pushed their view

where they weren’t wanted.– Weather the group taught their child different vote.

• 0 = not at all true to 100= very much true.

Results and Discussion

• Preliminary AnalysisThere were significant differences between outgroups.

– Direct friendship – Indirect friendship– Outgroup prejudice

• Testing the friendship hypothesis via group comparisons– friendship effect was significant and consistent with the intergroup friendship hypothesis. – intergroup friend reported less prejudice than Ss that had no Intergroup friends.– direct but no indirect friends had much lower prejudice than those with indirect friends but no

direct friends. • So the results suggested that direct intergroup friendship might be more a powerful

prejudice reducing experience than indirect intergroup friendship.• Affective and Cognitive moderators

– Direct friendship effects were relatively large and significant with the two more affective groups (elderly people & mature-aged students); but were smaller and nonsignificant with the two more cognitive outgroups (vegetarians & engineering students)

– Indirect friendship effects were significant with the most cognitive outgroup (engineering students) but not with the more affective outgroups

Study 2- Gender and Population

• Looks at variables from the different perspective of individual variations in the Affective-Cognitive bases of prejudice.

2(gender)X3(population) ANOVA

• Affective responding= feelings and emotions• Cognitive responding= thoughts and beliefs

Procedure/Questionnaires

• Predictor Variable– Modified to account for the expected small amount of

intergroup friendship experience among community adults, AND

– To facilitate comparisons b/w effects

• Outcome Variable– Study target groups and average on an overall index

of prejudice.

…Procedure/Questionnaires

• Moderator VariableImplicit: (Esses & Dovidio)

First. List thoughts, feelings, beliefs, emotions

ex) Hairy, Strong, Tough, Proud, Lazy

Second. Categorize items with either T or E

ex) Hairy (T), Strong (T), Tough (E), Proud (E), Lazy (E)

Explicit: (self-reporting) Degree of reaction; 0=not at all, 100=very much

“Come from your HEART” (feelings, emotions)

“Come from your HEAD” (thoughts, beliefs)

Results

Direct friendships have a more powerful prejudice-reducing experience than Indirect friendships.

-direct friendship were significant among those who listed high percentage of affective items first.

-direct friendship were weaker/non-significant among those who

listed high percentage of cognitive items first.

Indirect friendship- Interaction only for self-reported cognition.

-Indirect friendship were significant predictor of reduction in Outgroup prejudice among those high on self-reported cognition and those low on self-reported affective.

Study 3

Direct and Indirect Friendship Effects: Testing the Moderating Role of the Affective-Cognitive

Bases of Prejudice

Intergroup

• Religious Sectarianism• Catholics and Protestants

– Affective-cognitive bases of prejudice» Affective (emotions and feelings» Cognitive (beliefs and thoughts)

– Intimate forms of contact (whether direct or indirect friendship)

Psychometrics

• Predictor variables of studies 1 and 2 modified– “indicate the number of friends you have in

the outgroup (direct) and the number of ingroup friends they had who had friends in the target outgroup (indirect).”

• 1 = none, 2 = a few, 3 = about half, 4 = more than half, 5 = most, 6 = all

Psychometrics

• Explicit (moderator variable)– Also modified from study 2

• “when considering people of the opposite [group (Catholic/Protestant)], to what degree do you have the impression that your reactions ‘come from your heart’?”

• “when considering people of the opposite [group (Catholic/Protestant)], to what degree do you have the impression that your reactions ‘come from your head’?”

• 1 = not at all, 5 = extremely

Psychometrics

• Outcome variables– Beliefs that the outgroups would not harm

ingroup members• Trust• Exploitation• Negative Action Tendencies

Psychometrics (contd.)

• Trust– “I can trust people I know from the Protestant

[Catholic] community not to hurt people from my community”

• Exploitation - “Members of the Protestant (Catholic)

community will exploit me if I trust them

1 = definitely can’t be too careful

4 = definitely can be trusted

Psychometrics

• Negative Action Tendencies– Tendencies to avoid outgroups– Tendencies to attack

• 1 = never, 5 = very often

What then?

• Indirect Friends– Catholic > Protestant

• Prejudice– Catholic < Protestant

• Trust– Catholic > Protestant

Direct and Indirect Effects• Both friendships predicted significant

reductions

• Increases in trust

• Reductions in negative action tendencies

• Cross-community friendships might still improve crucial behavioral aspects of intergroup relations such as extending trust to the outgroup and reduced tendency to avoid attack even when group liking cannot be improved further.

Affective-Cognitive Bases of Prejudice

• Direct friendship effects did not change as a function of the cognitive bases of prejudice, where as indirect friendship did.

• Prejudice-reducing effects of indirect friendship were larger among respondents with strong cognitive responses to the out group than among respondent with weak cognitive responses

Therefore

• Direct and indirect intergroup friendships can be beneficial in systematic politically charged intergroup contexts even in vicarious situations

General Discussion

• Studies provided converging (not always statistically strong) support for the moderational hypothesis.

• Study 1– Direct friendship effects were relatively large

and significant with the two more affective groups (elderly people & mature-aged students); but were smaller and nonsignificant with the two more cognitive outgroups (vegetarians & engineering students)

Discussion continued…

• Study 1– Indirect friendship effects were significant with

the most cognitive outgroup (engineering students) but not with the more affective outgroups

In studies 2 & 3, similar results were found

…continued…again…

• Study 2– Direct friendship effects were generally

stronger among people with strong affective responding but smaller and nonsignificant among individuals with cognitive responding.

– The relationship between indirect friendship and outgroup prejudice was generally sizeable among individuals with predominantly cognitive responding but negligible among individuals with more affective responding

…yes…again…• Study 3

– Statistically stronger evidence for the newer indirect friendship-cognitive bases moderation in a traditionally polarized and segregated society

– Pattern of intergroup friendships reported by adult Catholics and Protestants replicated previous finding of a moderation effect on a standardized attitude scale but also extended it to two new outcome measures (trusting the outgroup and negative action tendencies).

Conclusions

• Builds and qualifies Pettigrew’s and Wright et al.’s recommendations that intergroup and outgroups could reduce prejudice if individuals took charge to bring both inter and out-groups together in more direct friendship than just vicarious interaction. This allows for others to develop ways of eliminating prejudicial responses.

Question 1

In the beginning of article 2, _____ friendships portray an individual who is a member of a ingroup and who is friends with a member of an out group. Second, _____ friendships portray an individual who is a member of an ingroup and has a friend in the same ingroup who has a friend who is a member of an outgroup.

A) relative; deceptive B) Ingroup; outgroupC) demanding; niceD) direct; indirect

Question 2In study 2 of article 2 Direct friendships had a more powerful prejudice-reducing experience than

Indirect friendships. So from the results of study 2: direct friendship were ________ among those who listed high percentage of _____________. indirect friendship were __________ among those who listed high percentage of ________.

A). Significant, affective items first, weaker/non-significant, cognitive items first.

B). Congruent, affective items first, non-significant/zero, cognitive items first.

C). Worthless, cognitive items first, Stronger/near the top, affective items first.

D). Weaker/non-significant, affective items, significant, cognitive items first.