Effects of intergroup contact and relative gratification vs. deprivation on prejudice on both sides of the U.S./Mexico status divide

A study in the U.S.–Mexican intergroup context examined how collective relative gratification (RG) versus deprivation affects the relationship between intergroup contact and interpersonal closeness and subtle prejudice towards an out-group. Participants were Mexican university students in Mexico (N = 239) and non-Mexican students in California (N = 90). As predicted, Mexicans experienced less gratification/higher relative deprivation (RD), and low quality intergroup contact and expressed lower interpersonal closeness and higher subtle prejudice than U.S. Americans. Differences between countries were larger amongst participants reporting higher RD. Second-stage moderated mediation analysis showed that the mediating effects of contact between country and interpersonal closeness and subtle prejudice, respectively, were larger amongst participants who felt relatively gratified than those who felt relatively deprived. These findings underline the importance of recognizing the moderating effect of differences in the RG versus RD levels of minority and majority groups when anticipating the potential benefits of intergroup contact for prejudice reduction.     

Implicit and explicit measures of prejudice and stereotyping: do they assess the same underlying knowledge structure?

Do implicit and explicit measures of ethnic attitudes assess the same underlying knowledge structure in long term memory? This study uses both a correlational and an experimental design (N = 133) in order to address this central question. In the first part, we suggest that self‐presentational strategies can partly explain why the relation between implicit and explicit measures is inconsistent in the existing literature. More specifically, we show that when there are strong norms against prejudice, implicit and explicit measures are significantly negatively related. In the second part, an experimental manipulation of relative gratification (RG), the opposite of relative deprivation, reveals that when the level of explicit prejudice increases (RG condition), a similar effect is also observed at the implicit level. Together, these results suggest that implicit and explicit measures assess similar knowledge structure. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personal relative deprivation, delay discounting, and gambling

Several lines of research have provided evidence for a relation between personal relative deprivation and gambling. Despite this knowledge, little is known about possible psychological mechanisms through which personal relative deprivation exerts its influence on gambling. The authors of this research sought to examine one such mechanism: the desire for immediate rewards. Using complementary approaches to studying psychological mechanisms, they tested in four studies the general hypothesis that personal relative deprivation translates into gambling urges and behavior in part via increased desires for immediate, even if smaller, rewards. Study 1 showed that an experimental manipulation of personal relative deprivation increased participants' preferences for smaller-sooner over larger-later rewards during a delay-discounting task. Studies 2 and 3 showed that a decreased willingness to delay gratification led to increased gambling behavior. Study 4 showed that preferences for smaller-sooner over larger-later rewards statistically mediated the relation between self-reported personal relative deprivation and gambling urges among a community sample of gamblers. The implications and potential applications of these findings are discussed.     

Attachment security and intergroup contact

The contact hypothesis suggests that the interaction between members of different groups decreases prejudice. Moderators and mediators shaping this link have been investigated. However, research about the factors that facilitate contact is not frequent. This article examines secure attachment as an antecedent of contact. Three studies provide information about various aspects of the relationship between secure attachment and contact: security is positively associated with (a) intergroup contact, which in turn is related to reduced prejudice (Study 1); (b) implicit approach tendencies toward the outgroup (Study 2); and, once again, (c) with contact through the indirect effect of openness to exploration (Study 3). In the discussion, we recommend priming both secure and insecure schemas to investigate their unique effects on intergroup contact.     

The relation of formal education to ethnic prejudice: Its reliability,validity and explanation

This paper examines three issues concerning the frequently documented negative correlation between formal education and ethnic prejudice, namely its reliability, its validity and the manner in which it is mediated. Reliability is demonstrated across three indices of ethnic attitudes in seven representative samples drawn from four European countries (West Germany, Netherlands, France, Great Britain; total N=3788). The hypothesis that this correlation reflects only the tendency of more highly educated respondents to give more socially desirable answers and not true attitude differences was inconsistent with the finding from the survey data that educational level also correlated negatively with responses to an index of subtle prejudice. Results from an experiment employing the bogus pipeline procedure similarly refute this hypothesis, indicating that significant education-related differences in expressed prejudice remain under conditions in which the tendency to give socially desirable responses is reduced. Finally, path analysis based on the survey data show that part but not all of the association between low education and ethnic prejudice is mediated by social psychological variables, particularly group relative deprivation, perceived belief incongruency, political conservatism, and acceptance of inter-ethnic contact.     

Increasing wealth inequality may increase interpersonal hostility: The relationship between personal relative deprivation and aggression

In most Western societies, wealth inequality is increasing, which in turn could increase people’s belief that one’s standing is relatively disadvantaged. Based on relative deprivation theory, we argue that such an experience of personal relative deprivation should causally lead to greater interpersonal hostility. Indeed, three experiments show that participants in a personal relative deprivation condition reported higher levels of aggressive affect and behaved more aggressively than participants in a personal relative gratification condition. Compared to a control condition, participants experiencing personal relative deprivation were more aggressive rather than participants experiencing personal relative gratification being less aggressive. However, personal relative deprivation increased aggressive behavior only toward targets that were the source for participants’ experience of disadvantage, but it did not increase aggression toward neutral targets.     

Right-wing authoritarianism,fundamentalism and prejudice revisited: Removing suppression and statistical artefact

This paper challenges a finding reported by several researchers, that fundamentalism could be associated with a reduction in racial prejudice after controlling for authoritarianism (RWA). We argue that the presence of fundamentalism in the construct definition of the conventionalism cluster of RWA leads to higher associations between fundamentalism and conventionalism than with other aspects of RWA. This creates a statistical artefact that distorts the results of multiple regression analyses that include both fundamentalism and RWA as independent variables. To test this hypothesis, 299 participants completed measures of prejudice as well as fundamentalism and the three RWA clusters (conventionalism, authoritarian aggression, and submission). In regression analyses using fundamentalism and the combined RWA scale we replicate previous findings that when RWA is controlled, higher fundamentalism leads to lower prejudice. After removing the overlapping method variance in the scales, this pattern is eliminated and the commonly observed positive relationship between fundamentalism and prejudice is found. We describe the statistical artefact, its antecedents, and its theoretical implications, and outline how investigations in this important area should proceed.     

Personal Relative Deprivation: A Look at the Grievous Consequences of Grievance

Stouffer et al. (1949) have first coined the term ‘relative deprivation’ to account for unexpected grievance expressed by members of a fortunate group. Many researchers have built on this work and have concluded that a person's feeling of deprivation is relative rather than absolute. In other words, deprivation stems from a social comparison with better‐off persons. In this chapter, a brief summary of the ground‐breaking research on relative deprivation is presented followed by an overview of research on overt and covert responses to personal relative deprivation. In accounting for the silent reactions of the underprivileged, we mainly focus on recent research linking personal relative deprivation to psychological disengagement. Turning to the responses of members of privileged groups, we take into account personal relative deprivation and gratification. Our concluding remarks suggest that responses of both the underprivileged and the privileged concur to the maintenance of the status quo.     

Right-wing authoritarianism predicts prejudice against “homosexuals” but not “gay men and lesbians”

Can different social category labels for a single group be associated with different levels of prejudice — specifically, sexual prejudice? Some theorizing, and a pilot study in the present research, suggests that the label “homosexuals” carries more deviance-related connotations than does the label “gay men and lesbians.” Given that right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) correlates positively with prejudice against groups stereotyped as deviant, it was hypothesized that RWA would predict greater prejudice against “homosexuals” than “gay men and lesbians” among heterosexual participants. Two studies supported this hypothesis and demonstrated that the effect was driven by both perceived threats to heterosexuals' values (i.e., symbolic threat; Study 1) and perceived fundamental differences between “homosexuals” and heterosexuals as social categories (i.e., psychological essentialism; Study 2). Implications for the factors that predict social categorization of and prejudice toward sexual minorities are discussed.     

When East meets West: a longitudinal examination of the relationship between group relative deprivation and intergroup contact in reunified Germany

Intergroup contact and group relative deprivation have both been shown to play a key role in the understanding of intergroup relations. Nevertheless, we know little about their causal relationship. In order to shed some light on the directionality and causality of the relationship between intergroup contact and group relative deprivation, we analysed responses by East and West Germans from k= 97 different cities, collected 6 (N(T)(1) = 1,001), 8 (N(T)(2) = 747), and 10 years (N(T)(3) = 565) after reunification. Multi-level cross-lagged analyses showed that group relative deprivation at T1 led to more (rather than less) intergroup contact between East and West Germans 2 years as well as 4 years later. We found no evidence for the reverse causal relationship, or moderation by group membership. Furthermore, admiration mediated the positive effect of relative deprivation on intergroup contact for both East and West Germans. This intriguing finding suggests that intergroup contact may be used as a proactive identity management strategy by members of both minority and majority groups.     

Disentangling the belief in God and cognitive rigidity/flexibility components of religiosity to predict racial and value-violating prejudice: A Post-Critical Belief Scale analysis

Past research indicates that being religious is associated with prejudice toward racial and value-violating out-groups. However, this past research treated religiosity as a unidimensional construct without taking into account how different components of religiosity—belief in a higher power and the rigidity/flexibility of religious beliefs—are associated with measures of prejudice. Two studies examined the relationship between these two components of religiosity, as measured by the Post-Critical Beliefs Scale, and racial (African Americans, Arabs) and value-violating prejudices (atheists, gay men). As the flexibility of religious beliefs increased (literal vs. symbolic dimension), attitudes toward racial and value-violating out-groups became more positive (Study 1). As belief in God strengthened (exclusion vs. inclusion of transcendence dimension), attitudes toward value-violating out-groups became more negative. Study 2 demonstrated that these two components of religiosity fully mediated the relationship between general religiosity and prejudice toward African Americans, Arabs, and gay men and partially mediated the relationship between religiosity and prejudice toward atheists. Results are discussed in light of reexamining the conclusion that simply being religious is associated with prejudice.     

Affective mediators of intergroup contact: a three-wave longitudinal study in South Africa

Intergroup contact (especially cross-group friendship) is firmly established as a powerful strategy for combating group-based prejudice (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). Great advances have been made in understanding how contact reduces prejudice (Brown & Hewstone, 2005), highlighting the importance of affective mediators (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). The present study, a 3-wave longitudinal study undertaken among minority-status Colored high school children in South Africa (N = 465), explored the full mediation of the effects of cross-group friendships on positive outgroup attitudes, perceived outgroup variability, and negative action tendencies via positive (affective empathy) and negative (intergroup anxiety) affective mediators simultaneously. The target group was the majority-status White South African outgroup. As predicted, a bidirectional model described the relationship between contact, mediators, and prejudice significantly better over time than either autoregressive or unidirectional longitudinal models. However, full longitudinal mediation was only found in the direction from Time 1 contact to Time 3 prejudice (via Time 2 mediators), supporting the underlying tenet of the contact hypothesis. Specifically, cross-group friendships were positively associated with positive outgroup attitudes (via affective empathy) and perceived outgroup variability (via intergroup anxiety and affective empathy) and were negatively associated with negative action tendencies (via affective empathy). Following Pettigrew and Tropp (2008), we compared two alternative hypotheses regarding the relationship between intergroup anxiety and affective empathy over time. Time 1 intergroup anxiety was indirectly negatively associated with Time 3 affective empathy, via Time 2 cross-group friendships. We discuss the theoretical and empirical contributions of this study and make suggestions for future research.     

The social costs of extrinsic relative to intrinsic goal pursuits: their relation with social dominance and racial and ethnic prejudice

Self-determination theory's distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic goal pursuits offers a possible explanation for ethnic and racial prejudice. Because extrinsic relative to intrinsic goal pursuits (E/I) stimulate interpersonal competition, they were expected to predict social dominance orientation (SDO), which, in turn, would predict racial and ethnic prejudice. Results of a first cross-sectional study showed that E/I goal pursuits are positively associated with prejudice and that SDO partially mediates this association. In a second longitudinal study, we replicated these results. In addition, however, we found evidence for a reciprocal relationship between E/I goal pursuit and SDO. Moreover, both E/I goal pursuit and SDO had an independent effect on increases in prejudice. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Intolerance of ambiguity and socio-politico ideology: A multidimensional analysis

This study tested the relative plausibility of three, main theories and/or hypotheses concerning the relationship between intolerance of ambiguity and socio-politico ideology: (a) authoritarian personality theory, (b) the extremism hypothesis and (c) the context hypothesis. The sample consisted of 195 Swedish high school students randomly selected from five different high schools from greater Stockholm in the spring of 1974. Separate factor analyses of the Budner Intolerance of Ambiguity Scale and the S4 Conservatism Scale generated seven factors of ambiguity intolerance and five factors of socio-politico ideology, Scattergram, correlation and trend analyses disclosed a number of statistically significant relationships between the various dimensions of ambiguity intolerance and socio-politico ideology. The main trend of the results tended to confirm authoritarian personality theory concerning the relationship between intolerance of ambiguity and racism or ethnic prejudice. Furthermore, some support was found for the context hypothesis, with regards to the relationship between general intolerance of ambiguity and general conservatism, among other things. No support could be found for the extremism hypothesis.     

Ambiguity in social categorization: The role of prejudice and facial affect in race categorization

Abstract— Two studies tested the hypothesis that perceivers' prejudice and targets' facial expressions bias race categorization in stereotypic directions. Specifically, we hypothesized that racial prejudice would be more strongly associated with a tendency to categorize hostile (but not happy) racially ambiguous faces as African American. We obtained support for this hypothesis using both a speeded dichotomous categorization task (Studies 1 and 2) and a rating-scale task (Study 2). Implicit prejudice (but not explicit prejudice) was related to increased sensitivity to the targets' facial expressions, regardless of whether prejudice was measured after (Study 1) or before (Study 2) the race categorizations were made.     

Can Imagination Reduce Prejudice Over Time? A Preregistered Test of the Imagined Contact Hypothesis

Research on the imagined contact hypothesis suggests that simply imagining a positive interaction with an out-group member can reduce prejudice toward stigmatized social groups. To date, however, it remains unclear whether imagined contact has transient or long-lasting effects. This preregistered study (N?=?153) tested the hypothesis that a single session of imagined contact is sufficient for reducing explicit and implicit prejudice toward a stigmatized social group and intergroup anxiety over several days. Highlighting the power of imagination, the results suggest that imagined contact could have long-lasting effects on explicit prejudice and intergroup anxiety.     

The cultural narratives of Francophone and Anglophone Quebecers: using a historical perspective to explore the relationships among collective relative deprivation, in-group entitativity, and collective esteem

Responding to calls to contextualize social psychological variables in history, the present research examines the relationship between collective relative deprivation and collective esteem using a historical perspective. We hypothesized that collective relative deprivation perceived to be experienced during an important low-point in a group's history serves to define the group's current collective identity, which is in turn associated with collective esteem. In Study 1, cultural narrative interviews were conducted with Francophone and Anglophone Quebecers in order to identify key historical chapters for these groups and to examine the extent to which historical low-points were identity-defining features of their narratives. In Study 2, using the information obtained from these narratives, collective relative deprivation was explored across group members' perceived histories and related to current in-group entitativity and collective esteem. The relationship between collective relative deprivation thought to be experienced by one's group during a historical low-point and collective esteem was positive for both Anglophone and Francophone Quebecers and was mediated by in-group entitativity. Collective relative deprivation perceived to be experienced during a historical low-point serves to define one's collective identity, which is in turn associated with greater collective esteem.     

Avoiding affect in intergroup relations: The roles of dispositional and intergroup empathy in the relationship between alexithymia and prejudice

Alexithymia, that is, difficulties in recognizing, communicating, and processing one's own emotions, is associated with poorer interpersonal relations. Emotional processes are key drivers and mechanisms of prejudice and its reduction, and alexithymia is thought to influence individuals' empathic responses. This research examined the relationship between alexithymia and prejudice, and the role of empathy in this relationship. Three studies were conducted in three intergroup contexts to test whether alexithymia is also associated with poorer intergroup relations with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender+ individuals (Study 1, N = 126 heterosexual late adolescents) and Asian British people (Study 3, N = 300 White adults) in the United Kingdom, and immigrants in Italy (Study 2, N = 381 Italian adults). Participants completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), measures on dispositional and intergroup empathic concern (EC) and perspective taking (PT) as well as measures of prejudice (anti-outgroup hostility, anti-outgroup attitudes, and anti-outgroup behavioral intentions). Lower dispositional EC (Studies 1, marginal effect in Study 2) and intergroup EC and PT (Study 3) mediated the relationship between the Externally Oriented Thinking subscale of the TAS-20 (i.e., avoiding emotions and affective thinking) and greater prejudice. The findings are important for understanding the challenges of late adolescents and adults with alexithymia in intergroup relations, highlighting the role of dispositional and intergroup empathy for individual differences such as alexithymia in endorsing prejudice.     

Conditions for a linear speed-accuracy trade-off in aimed movements

A linear speed-accuracy trade-off has been found for rapid, precisely timed movements from a home position toward a target point. In this trade-off, W_e = K₁ + K₂(D/T), where D is the distance between the home position and the target, T is a pre-specified movement time, and W_e is the standard deviation of the distances actually moved. This result differs from Fitts' law, the commonly observed logarithmic trade-off in aimed movements. A new experiment with wrist rotations was performed to determine what conditions induce the linear trade-off rather than Fitts' law. Three types of condition are considered: movement brevity, feedback deprivation, and temporal precision. The experiment yielded a linear trade-off for precisely timed movements even when their durations significantly exceeded an amount of time (200 ms) sufficient to process visual feedback. This result suggests that the linearity does not depend on movement brevity and/or feedback deprivation per se. Instead it supports a temporal-precision hypothesis that the linear trade-off occurs when aimed movements must have precisely specified durations.

A linear speed-accuracy trade-off has been found for rapid, precisely timed movements from a home position toward a target point. In this trade-off, W_e = K₁ + K₂(D/T), where D is the distance between the home position and the target, T is a pre-specified movement time, and W_e is the standard deviation of the distances actually moved. This result differs from Fitts' law, the commonly observed logarithmic trade-off in aimed movements. A new experiment with wrist rotations was performed to determine what conditions induce the linear trade-off rather than Fitts' law. Three types of condition are considered: movement brevity, feedback deprivation, and temporal precision. The experiment yielded a linear trade-off for precisely timed movements even when their durations significantly exceeded an amount of time (200 ms) sufficient to process visual feedback. This result suggests that the linearity does not depend on movement brevity and/or feedback deprivation per se. Instead it supports a temporal-precision hypothesis that the linear trade-off occurs when aimed movements must have precisely specified durations.