This book is intended both as supplementary reading for courses and as a practical guidebook for individuals and programs interested in reducing prejudice and improving intergroup relations. It provides the only comprehensive review and compilation of techniques of improving intergroup relations. There's a huge amount of literature on the causes and nature of prejudice, reflecting great interest in the topic, but the literature on prejudice reduction is more scattered, spread across a range of theoretical and applied sources. This book brings these literatures together with an emphasis on helping to elucidate what works and why.
Improving Intergroup Relations focuses on emerging research directions for improving intergroup relations, a field which has been largely influenced and inspired by the life contributions of Thomas F. Pettigrew. The book Contains 18 original articles written in an accessible style by experts in psychology and related disciplines Suggests practical strategies for improving intergroup relations Looks at intergroup relations from the early influence of Dr. Pettigrew and how his seminal work has fostered many new developments in the field Explores the implications of intergroup research for the promotion of social change
This highly informative book describes in rich detail a wide variety of programs designed to improve intergroup relations. Specific techniques and practices are discussed and the research on the effectiveness of each program is carefully reviewed. In addition, there are chapters on the psychological mechanisms underlying successful programs and organizational practices that improve intergroup relations, as well as an up-to-date review of the overall effectiveness of these programs.
Intergroup contact theory has been one of the most influential theories in social psychology since it was first formulated by Gordon Allport in 1954. This volume highlights, via a critical lens, the most notable recent developments in the field, demonstrating its vitality and its capacity for reinvention and integration with a variety of seemingly distinct research areas. In the last two decades, the research focus has been on the variables that explain why contact improves intergroup attitudes and when the contact-prejudice relationship is stronger. Current research highlights that contact is not a panacea for prejudice, but it can represent a useful tool that can contribute to the improvement of intergroup relations. The book includes coverage of a number of previously under-researched fields, which extend the full potential of contact theory within the personality, acculturation and developmental domains. The chapters also examine the methodological advances in the field and the applied implications. The book offers a rich picture of the state of the field and future directions for research that will be invaluable to students and scholars working in social psychology and related disciplines. It aims to provide fertile ground for the development of new, exciting and dynamic research ideas in intergroup relations.
Research and theory on intergroup contact have become one of the fastest advancing and most exciting fields in social psychology in recent years. The work is exciting because it combines basic social psychological concerns -- human interaction, situational influences on behavior -- with an effective means of improving intergroup relations at a time when the world is witnessing widespread intergroup hatred and strife. This volume provides an overview of this rapidly progressing area of investigation – its origins and early work, its current status and recent developments, along with criticisms of this work and suggestions for future directions. It covers a range of research findings involving contact between groups drawn from the authors’ extensive meta-analysis of 515 published studies on intergroup contact. This meta-analysis, together with the authors’ renowned research on intergroup contact, provides a solid foundation and broad overview of the field, to which have been added discussions of research extensions and emerging directions. When Groups Meet is a rich, comprehensive overview of classic and contemporary work on intergroup contact, and provides insights into where this work is headed in the future. For research specialists, this volume not only serves as a sourcebook for research and theory on intergroup contact, it also provides the entire 515-item bibliography from the meta-analysis. The clear structure and accessible writing style will also appeal to advanced undergraduate and graduate students in psychology and other social sciences.
A definitive reference on intra- and inter-group processes across a range of age and cultural contexts Children from infancy develop attachments to significant others in their immediate social environment, and over time become aware of other groups (e.g. gender, ethnicity, age, classroom, sports) that they do or do not belong to and why. Recent research shows that children’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviours are significantly influenced by these memberships and that the influence increases through childhood. This Handbook delivers the first comprehensive, international reference on this critical topic.
Due to continuing immigration and increasing racial and ethnic inclusiveness, higher education institutions in the United States are likely to grow ever more diverse in the 21st century. This shift holds both promise and peril: Increased inter-ethnic contact could lead to a more fruitful learning environment that encourages collaboration. On the other hand, social identity and on-campus diversity remain hotly contested issues that often raise intergroup tensions and inhibit discussion. How can we help diverse students learn from each other and gain the competencies they will need in an increasingly multicultural America? Dialogue Across Difference synthesizes three years’ worth of research from an innovative field experiment focused on improving intergroup understanding, relationships and collaboration. The result is a fascinating study of the potential of intergroup dialogue to improve relations across race and gender. First developed in the late 1980s, intergroup dialogues bring together an equal number of students from two different groups – such as people of color and white people, or women and men – to share their perspectives and learn from each other. To test the possible impact of such courses and to develop a standard of best practice, the authors of Dialogue Across Difference incorporated various theories of social psychology, higher education, communication studies and social work to design and implement a uniform curriculum in nine universities across the country. Unlike most studies on intergroup dialogue, this project employed random assignment to enroll more than 1,450 students in experimental and control groups, including in 26 dialogue courses and control groups on race and gender each. Students admitted to the dialogue courses learned about racial and gender inequalities through readings, role-play activities and personal reflections. The authors tracked students’ progress using a mixed-method approach, including longitudinal surveys, content analyses of student papers, interviews of students, and videotapes of sessions. The results are heartening: Over the course of a term, students who participated in intergroup dialogues developed more insight into how members of other groups perceive the world. They also became more thoughtful about the structural underpinnings of inequality, increased their motivation to bridge differences and intergroup empathy, and placed a greater value on diversity and collaborative action. The authors also note that the effects of such courses were evident on nearly all measures. While students did report an initial increase in negative emotions – a possible indication of the difficulty of openly addressing race and gender – that effect was no longer present a year after the course. Overall, the results are remarkably consistent and point to an optimistic conclusion: intergroup dialogue is more than mere talk. It fosters productive communication about and across differences in the service of greater collaboration for equity and justice. Ambitious and timely, Dialogue Across Difference presents a persuasive practical, theoretical and empirical account of the benefits of intergroup dialogue. The data and research presented in this volume offer a useful model for improving relations among different groups not just in the college setting but in the United States as well.
This volume gives a survey of the most recent developments and trends in intergroup research. Diverging from classical approaches that looked at diverse needs and motives (positive distinctiveness, belongingness, etc), the present book focuses not only on the question what motivates intergroup behaviour, but especially on how the motivation of intergroup behaviour functions. The book focuses on the role of emotion and motivation in the development of intergroup conflict, social exclusion, tolerance and other group related phenomena. The sections demonstrate how classical theories in the field have been further developed, enriched, and more sophisticatedly tested over the years, and summarise research on affect and memory. They also develop a group based self-regulation approach, examine several specific emotions as motivational forces of intergroup behaviour, and look at factors of intergroup relations that lead to social change. The chapters are short and easy-to-comprehend summaries referring to a broad range of original work, providing a useful resource for advanced students of Social Psychology and researchers in the field of intergroup relations.
Groups in Contact: The Psychology of Desegregation uses the contact hypothesis as a point of departure and provides new data obtained in a variety of social contexts. The contact hypothesis states that attitudes toward a disliked social group will become more positive with increased interpersonal interaction. The various chapters provide a picture of the desegregation process as a complex interplay between the cognitive processes within the individual and the structural features of the social environment. What emerges is an expanded theory of contact based on social categorization and social comparison processes. The book is organized into three parts. The chapters in Part I deal with issues of intergroup contact in a wide range of cultures and settings, each focusing on a particular social or political factor that influences receptivity to intergroup interaction and affects its outcomes. The chapters in Part II review the effects of specific interventions that have been introduced into desegregation settings with the intent of improving intergroup acceptance in those settings. Part III provides a systematic integration of the preceding chapters within a common theoretical framework. Although this book is written primarily from the perspective of social psychology, it is intended for students of intergroup relations in all disciplines. It was also written with policymakers, as well as social science researchers, in mind.
