Independent benefits of contact and friendship on attitudes toward homosexuals among authoritarians and highly identified heterosexuals

Although intergroup contact is generally associated with positive intergroup attitudes, little is known about whether individual differences moderate these relations, or how contact might operate among prejudice‐prone individuals. The present investigation explores Person × Contact and Person × Friendship interaction patterns among heterosexual university students. As expected, the positive relations of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and heterosexual identification with prejudice against homosexuals were weakened when participants reported increased contact, more positive contact, direct (personal) friendships, or indirect friendships (i.e., ingroup friends with outgroup friends) with homosexuals. These patterns held after controlling statistically for each person or situation variable. Contact and friendship exerted smaller or negligible effects among low authoritarians or low identifiers. Tests of indirect effects revealed that among high authoritarians or high identifiers, contact and friendship exerted influence on attitudes through group‐level perceptions that homosexuals promote societal values and through increased self–other overlap with gay friends, each otherwise resisted by these individuals. Overall these results suggest that: (a) intergroup contact and intergroup friendship are related but distinct constructs; and (b) past findings underestimate contact effects by collapsing across levels of personal biases. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.