Can imagined interactions produce positive perceptions? Reducing prejudice through simulated social contact.

By R. Crisp, Rhiannon N. Turner. American Psychologist, 2009

663 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The contact hypothesis states that, under the right conditions, contact between members of different groups leads to more positive intergroup relations. The authors track recent trends in contact theory to the emergence of extended, or indirect, forms of contact. These advances lead to an intriguing proposition: that simply imagining intergroup interactions can produce more positive perceptions of outgroups. The authors discuss empirical research supporting the imagined contact proposition and find it to be an approach that is at once deceptively simple and remarkably effective. Encouraging people to mentally simulate a positive intergroup encounter leads to improved outgroup attitudes and reduced stereotyping. It curtails intergroup anxiety and extends the attribution of perceivers' positive traits to others. The authors describe the advantages and disadvantages of imagined contact compared to conventional strategies, outline an agenda for future research, and discuss applications for policymakers and educators in their efforts to encourage more positive intergroup relations.

Subfields: Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6bb5095ac1d48113c32b015332e419d5797fc85e

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Citations in the corpus

The Dynamics of Acculturation: An Intergroup Perspective (2011, background): “Indeed, even just imagining having contact might be sufficient to generate more positive intergroup attitudes (Crisp & Turner, 2009).”
The Imagined Contact Hypothesis (2012, background): “…that imagery techniques may afford the ability to more flexibly and creatively explore processes underlying intergroup contact effects, and offer a wide range of practical implementations of contact theory that could be applied to educational and organizational contexts (Crisp & Turner, 2009).”
Positive and negative intergroup contact: Interaction not asymmetry (2018, background): “…the emergence of evidence attesting the prejudice-reducing effects of various forms of positive indirect contact also, principally extended contact (Wright, Aron, MclaughlinVolpe, & Ropp, 1997), vicarious contact (Cameron, Rutland, Brown, & Douch, 2006), and imagined contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009).”
Confidence in Contact: A New Perspective on Promoting Cross-Group Friendship Among Children and Adolescents (2016, neutral): “We do not argue that indirect contact should replace direct contact, but instead suggest that for maximal effect, the two approaches should be used in combination, with indirect forms of contact preceding direct contact for maximal effect (Crisp & Turner, 2009, 2012).”
Imagined contact as a prejudice‐reduction intervention in schools: the underlying role of similarity and attitudes (2014, methodology): “In line with this,in the present research,we implement and evaluate a prejudice-reduction program based on a recent development in social psychology,imagined contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009).”
Vicarious intergroup contact effects (2011, background): “In order for any indirect or direct contact strategy to improve intergroup relations the observed or experienced interaction must be subjectively perceived as positive (Allport, 1954; Crisp & Turner, 2009; Wright et al., 1997).”
Reducing intergroup bias through intergroup contact: Twenty years of progress and future directions (2017, background): “Imagined contact is an indirect form of contact in which individuals actively engage in mental simulation of a positive contact experience (Crisp & Turner, 2009).”
Improving intergroup relations through direct, extended and other forms of indirect contact (2011, background): “Previous work on imagined contact has identified two key elements necessary to achieve positive impact on intergroup relations (Crisp & Turner, 2009).”
The Contact Space: A Novel Framework for Intergroup Contact Research (2010, background): “Crisp and Turner (2009) present an integrated review of this literature; among the key points they make is that imagined contact is part of a continuum of contact, where imagined contact can be followed by extended contact, and ultimately actual FtF contact.”