What Makes a Young Assertive Bystander? The Effect of Intergroup Contact, Empathy, Cultural Openness, and In‐Group Bias on Assertive Bystander Intervention Intentions

By N. Abbott, Lindsey Cameron. 2014

149 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The present research tests the indirect effects of intergroup contact on adolescents’ bystander intervention intentions via four potential mediators: “empathy,” “cultural openness,” “in-group bias,” and “intergroup anxiety.” British adolescents (N = 855), aged 11–13 years, completed measures of intergroup (interethnic) contact and the identified indirect variables. Intended bystander behavior was measured by presenting participants with an intergroup (immigrant) name-calling scenario. Participants rated the extent to which they would behave assertively. The findings extend previous intergroup contact research by showing a significant indirect effect of intergroup contact on assertive bystander intentions via empathy, cultural openness and in-group bias (but not via intergroup anxiety). Theoretical implications and practical suggestions for future prejudice-reduction interventions are discussed.

Subfields: Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2d1069554b95b0c61706378af72134b74168bce4

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Citations in the corpus

Whites for racial justice: How contact with Black Americans predicts support for collective action among White Americans (2018, background): “Relatedly, Abbott and Cameron (2014) found that trait levels of empathy mediated the relationship between intergroup contact and self-reported intentions to intervene when an immigrant was bullied (e.g., called offensive names).”
Confidence in Contact: A New Perspective on Promoting Cross-Group Friendship Among Children and Adolescents (2016, unknown): “…& Wright, 2011; Killen, Crystal, & Ruck, 2007; Turner, Tam, Hewstone, Kenworthy, & Cairns, 2013), increased prosocial behavioral intentions (Abbott & Cameron, 2014) and more inclusive friendships (Bagci, Kumashiro, Smith, Blumberg, & Rutland, 2014; Feddes, Noack, & Rutland, 2009; Jugert,…”