Elaboration enhances the imagined contact effect

By Shenel Husnu, R. Crisp. 2010

213 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent studies have shown that imagining intergroup contact can improve attitudes held toward a range of social groups. We extended research on imagined contact by testing an elaborated task variant designed specifically to enhance future contact intentions. In three experiments imagined contact heightened intentions, elaborated imagery enhanced this effect, and these enhancements were attributable to both reduced intergroup anxiety and an increase in the reported vividness of the imagined scenario. Furthermore, prior contact enhanced the vividness with which imagined scenarios were envisaged, with concurrent benefits for future contact intentions. Results also supported the notion that elaboration creates a more accessible contact script upon which to base future judgments of intention. We discuss the implications of these findings for a developing model of imagined contact effects.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/375131fbc0e265d4381ec87421b8e051c2163602

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Citations in the corpus

Confidence in Contact: A New Perspective on Promoting Cross-Group Friendship Among Children and Adolescents (2016, unknown): “…confidence in contact, increasing self-efficacy about contact (Stathi, Crisp, & Hogg, 2011) and reducing intergroup anxiety (Birtel & Crisp, 2012; Husnu & Crisp, 2010; Turner et al., 2007a; West, Holmes, & Hewstone, 2011), and promotes more positive behavior during actual interactions with…”
Behavioural consequences of imagining intergroup contact with stigmatized outgroups (2012, background): “…a range of positive consequences for intergroup relations, including more positive attitudes, less intergroup anxiety, and greater intergroup trust (Husnu & Crisp, 2010a, 2010b; Stathi & Crisp, 2008; Turner, Crisp, & Lambert, 2007; Turner, West, & Christie, in press; West, Holmes, & Hewstone,…”
The Imagined Contact Hypothesis (2012, background): “Compared to participants in the control condition, those in the imagined contact condition reported more positive beliefs regarding the character traits held by the typical Muslim, had more positive feelings about Muslims and behaved more positively towards the outgroup, choosing to sit closer to th”
Imagined Intergroup Contact: A New Technique for Encouraging Greater Inter-Ethnic Contact in Cyprus (2010, methodology): “In the experimental conditions, participants received the following imagined contact task instructions derived from previous versions of the task used successfully with outgroups (see Crisp, Stathi, Turner, & Husnu, 2008 ; Husnu & Crisp, 2009 ): ”
Imagined contact as a prejudice‐reduction intervention in schools: the underlying role of similarity and attitudes (2014, methodology): “…effects of the technique, and that we did not examine in this research, such as intergroup anxiety (Husnu & Crisp, 2010; Turner, Crisp, et al., 2007), out-group trust (Turner, West, & Christie, 2013; Vezzali, Capozza, Stathi, et al., 2012), and vividness of the mental imagery (Husnu & Crisp, 2010).”
Investigating Variation in Replicability: A “Many Labs” Replication Project (2022, unknown): “In Husnu and Crisp (2010), British non-Muslim participants were assigned to either imagine interacting with a British Muslim stranger or to imagine that they were walking outdoors (con-trol condition).”
Improving implicit and explicit intergroup attitudes using imagined contact: An experimental intervention with elementary school children (2012, background): “This enhanced elaboration has been shown to be beneficial for empowering the effects of imagined contact (Harwood et al., 2011; Husnu & Crisp, 2010a).”
From imagery to intention: A dual route model of imagined contact effects (2010, methodology): “…scenario (Husnu & Crisp, 2010a), likelihood estimates that the behaviour will take place (Husnu & Crisp, 2011), subjective ratings of ease of recall of the imagined scenario (Husnu & Crisp, 2010a), and meta-cognitive judgements concerning one’s own levels of tolerance (Crisp & Husnu, in press).”
Positive and extensive intergroup contact in the past buffers against the disproportionate impact of negative contact in the present (2014, background): “As elaboration reinforces imagined contact effects (Husnu & Crisp, 2010), we solicited open-ended responses to prompts such as ‘what did the person looked like?’ and ‘what happened to make the experience positive/negative?’”