Previous Conceptions of the Typical Group Member and the Contact Hypothesis

Allport's (1954) contact hypothesis predicted that pleasant contact with a member of a negatively stigmatized group would change attitudes both toward the specific person interacted with (specific attitude change) and also toward the group as a whole (generalization). Many previous studies of the contact hypothesis have demonstrated specific attitude change. In previous studies that demonstrated generalization, attitude change toward the group as a whole might have occurred because participants changed their opinions about what constituted a "typical" group member. Although this postulated mechanism of attitude change is difficult to test directly, our study sought indirect support by showing that preexisting conceptions of the typical group member differ in a way that affects the extent of generalization. Students who initially conceived of the typical person with AIDS (PWA) as an abstraction displayed greater generalization following pleasant contact with a PWA than did students who initially conceived of the typical PWA as a specific person. The generalization part of Allport's contact hypothesis may thus be related to recent research on social categorization.