This study investigated online intergroup contact between heterosexual men and women (the majority) and gay men and lesbian women (the minority) and tested whether Allport's optimal conditions - cooperation, common goals, equal status, and authority support - moderate the positive effects of online contact quality on intergroup attitudes and outgroup trust. Italian adult participants reported their experiences of social media contact with a sexual outgroup. Results revealed that optimal conditions did not moderate the association between the perceived quality of online contact and intergroup attitudes in either the majority or minority group. However, when outgroup trust was the dependent variable, the perception of common goals and equal status in online contact strengthened the effect of contact quality among gay and lesbian participants (but not among heterosexual participants). These results shed light on the conditions needed to improve the effects of online intergroup contact on reducing prejudice toward sexual minorities.

Despite positive shifts in public attitudes, prejudice against sexual orientation and gender diverse (SOGD) persons endures. These attitudes often arise from religious threats and minimal intergroup contact. In light of this, the current study examined the effectiveness of a text-based vicarious contact intervention for improving attitudinal, affective, and behavioral relations toward SOGD persons. Cisgender heterosexual participants (N = 191) were categorized as religious or nonreligious based on self-reported identification and randomly allocated to a vicarious intergroup contact (reading text about a cooperative goal direct interaction between SOGD and cisgender heterosexual persons) or intragroup interaction. As predicted, higher religiously self-identified participants reported significantly more negative intergroup outcomes toward SOGD persons. Vicarious intergroup contact significantly increased willingness to engage in direct contact with SOGD persons but did not reduce prejudice or intergroup anxiety. No interaction effect of vicarious contact and religious identification was found on outcome variables. Overall, this study lays the foundation for future prejudice reduction efforts targeting religiosity and supports vicarious intergroup contact as a strategy to enhance willingness to engage in contact with SOGD minorities.

Although most soccer fans support their teams peacefully, anti-social fan behavior continues to appear across the globe. We tested the roles of identity fusion and membership to an extreme fan group (ultras) in explaining fan disorder in two understudied contexts: Indonesia (Study 1) and Australia (Study 2). Incidents of violence and antisocial behavior were rarely reported among general Indonesian (9%) or Australian fans (6%) but were significantly higher among their respective ultras groups (37%; 20%). Identity fusion predicted antisocial behavior, especially when combined with fan group membership. Fusion explained anti-social behaviors better than identification or social dominance orientation. Understanding the motivators of intergroup violence is crucial to devise more effective ways of channeling cohesion among group members into peaceful forms of prosocial action.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated anti-Chinese sentiments, demonstrating an urgent need for effective prejudice reduction interventions. Study 1 tested the relationship between contact and prejudice and its mediators toward Chinese people in Australia ( N = 362). As predicted, positive contact was significantly associated with less prejudice and, reliably, intergroup anxiety had the strongest mediation effect in this relationship. In Study 2, European Australians ( N = 161) were randomly assigned to an intergroup or intragroup (control) contact interaction, delivered vicariously via audio or text. As hypothesized, vicarious intergroup contact significantly reduced prejudice and negative emotions toward Chinese people. Moreover, text-based vicarious contact led to significantly lower intergroup anxiety and negative intergroup emotions than audio-based contact. No interaction effects of vicarious contact and delivery mode were found. Overall, these studies support direct and vicarious text-based contact as effective strategies for reducing prejudice in a global crisis and improving attitudes toward Chinese people.

With the exponential growth of new technology, it is timely that social psychologists continue to develop new and effective solutions to old but existing problems, including prejudice. One such solution is virtual reality (VR). This critical review examines VR as a promising new media tool to reduce prejudice and improve intergroup relations. Unlike traditional prejudice reduction strategies, VR provides researchers with a high degree of experimental control and flexibility. However, VR prejudice reduction research is in its infancy, and a myriad of challenges have emerged, including the: i) difficulty of cross-study comparisons and navigation of existing literature due to lack of standardized VR methodologies; ii) limitations of adapting traditional prejudice reduction strategies into VR; and iii) the lack of measurement of behaviors. This paper critically evaluates each of these limitations and, in doing so, proposes a new working framework incorporating two dimensions, the: i) VR input device, and ii) level of interactivity and mobility in the VR environment. This framework attempts to address the lack of standardization of immersion and presence in current VR research by helping guide future VR researchers to better identify the type of research they are conducting, evaluate existing research findings, and thus make cross-comparisons in VR prejudice reduction findings more meaningful.

Prejudice toward people with a disability remains an unchallenged global problem. This cross-sectional study investigated online intergroup contact involving university students without disability (N = 107), participating within a social program aimed at fostering the social inclusion of people with a disability. We tested two separate path models, where positive and negative online contact were the predictors (controlling for positive and negative offline contact), sense of community was the mediator, while social distance from, and attitudes toward people with disability, were the outcome variables. Results showed that greater positive (but not negative) online contact was associated with more positive evaluations and lower social distance toward people with a disability, via heightened sense of community.

OBJECTIVES:There has been limited consideration of the role emotion self-stigma (i.e. beliefs that experiencing and expressing so called 'negative' emotions are unacceptable) may play in help-seeking for emotional distress. This study is the first to investigate whether emotion self-stigma uniquely predicts help-seeking intentions across two key emotion vulnerability periods in development: (a) early adolescence and (b) young adulthood.METHODS AND DESIGN:Cross-sectional data were collected from secondary school (n = 510; M age = 13.96 years) and university students (n = 473; M age = 19.19 years) residing in Australia. Both samples completed measures online examining demographic characteristics, emotional competence, mental health and help-seeking stigma, emotion self-stigma, and help-seeking intentions. The Data were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression.RESULTS:Emotion self-stigma was a significant unique predictor of help-seeking intentions in young adults but not adolescents. The strength of the relationship between increased emotion self-stigma and lowered help-seeking intentions was similar for both males and females, regardless of developmental period.CONCLUSIONS:Addressing emotion self-stigma alongside mental illness and help-seeking stigma may be useful to improve help-seeking outcomes, particularly as young people transition into early adulthood.

Why does group loyalty sometimes take the form of cooperation or peaceful competition with rival groups and, at other times, violent outgroup hostility? We approached this question using online surveys and an experimental manipulation with British soccer fans. Identity fusion (a visceral sense of "oneness" with the group) is known to motivate strong forms of pro-group action, both peaceful and violent. We identified three crucial factors that influence fused supporters' intergroup behaviours: age, gender, and exposure to out-group threat. Intergroup behaviours included ingroup altruism (e.g., giving one's time, or emotional/financial support), barrier-crossing altruism (altruistic acts toward rival fan groups), and outgroup hostility (e.g., insulting, spitting at, or physically attacking). Overall, fused fans were more hostile towards outgroups than were weakly fused fans, but they prioritised ingroup altruism over outgroup hostility, and were most likely to report high levels of barrier-crossing altruism. Older fused fans desired future outgroup hostility only under high threat conditions. A clearer understanding of the factors that modulate these different behaviours is a crucial first step in devising more effective ways of reducing intergroup hostility and, crucially, of channelling extreme forms of group alignment into peaceful forms of prosocial action.

There is increasing research interest as to whether Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), specifically the group skills training component, is an effective early intervention approach when delivered universally in schools. The current study aimed to provide the first large-scale examination of a universal DBT-based intervention and to also determine the extent to which home practice of DBT skills predicted changes in social and emotional outcomes over time. A non-randomised controlled trial design was employed whereby 1071 participants (51.30% Male; M age = 13.48 years) completed either an adapted eight-session DBT skills-training intervention ('WISE Teens) (n = 563) or class-as-per-usual (n = 508). On average, the 'WISE Teens' intervention did not improve outcomes with significant deteriorations or null effects observed across outcomes relative to class-as-per-usual immediately post-intervention. The largest deteriorations were observed for depressive (d =-0.22; 95% CI =-0.35,-0.08) and anxiety symptoms (d =-0.28; 95%CI -=-0.41,-0.14). Applying Bonferroni corrections, most group differences in outcomes had dissipated at follow-up, however, 'WISE Teens' participants continued to report significantly poorer quality of parent-child relationships relative to control (d = .16 for mother (95% CI = 0.01, 0.31); d = 0.17 for father (95% CI = 0.02, 0.33). While home practice was modest on average, further exploratory analyses nevertheless revealed that greater home practice was generally associated with more positive outcomes both immediately post-intervention and at follow-up. Based on these findings, the DBT-based 'WISE Teens' intervention is not recommended in its current format for universal dissemination amongst early ado-lescents in schools. Further research is needed to determine how to improve engagement and feasibility of de-livery of DBT-based interventions universally in this context.

A large number of studies support the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing public stigma, which has numerous deleterious effects on the lives of people with mental illness. Missing from research literature, however, is an examination of intervention characteristics which may enhance their effectiveness. Drawing from the broader literature concerned with changing perceptions of social outgroups, the present research program explores the role of exemplar typicality-the degree to which the characteristics of outgroup members who participants read about or interact with adhere to stereotypes about their group. Scholars have arrived at divergent conclusions regarding the level of typicality that is the most beneficial, prompting experimentation into this issue. In three studies concerned with stigma against people with mental illness, participants read about (n = 262) or had contact with (E-contact, n = 248; imagined contact, n = 506) a typical, moderately atypical, or extremely atypical exemplar. Overall, the results suggested typical exemplars to be detrimental or less effective, while atypical exemplars appeared to produce lower public stigma. But there were inconsistent findings regarding the difference between the moderately and extremely atypical exemplars. These results call for intergroup contact scholars to reexamine the claim that typical exemplars are ideal, given their potential to aggravate biases toward some vulnerable social groups. The findings also suggest that organizations implementing prevalent interventions such as contact and personal narratives to reduce mental health stigma should carefully attend to the characteristics of the outgroup exemplars involved.

Bisexual individuals are invisible sexual minorities, who face prejudice and "double discrimination" from both heterosexual and sexual minority communities. Despite this, little empirical research has examined bisexual prejudice reduction. To address this, the current study tested an E-contact intervention - a highly structured, text-based, online interaction tool - to reduce bisexual prejudice. Heterosexual participants (N = 170) were randomly allocated to an intergroup (E-contact) or intragroup (control) interaction, with either a male or female interaction partner. Findings indicated that intergroup E-contact resulted in less intergroup anxiety compared to an intragroup interaction, and that this effect was more pronounced when the bisexual interaction partner was male for heterosexual men, but not for heterosexual women. Although E-contact had no direct effect on tolerance toward bisexual individuals or the perceived stability of bisexuality as a sexual orientation, findings revealed that reduced intergroup anxiety mediated the effect of E-contact on these outcome variables. This result was found in the intergroup dynamic of heterosexual men interacting with bisexual men, providing an important experimental demonstration of the potential for harnessing an E-contact intervention to reduce affective prejudice toward bisexual individuals.

Cesario misrepresents experimental social psychology. The discipline encompasses significantly more than implicit bias research, including controlled decision making and real-world behavioral observations. Paradoxically, while critiquing popular implicit bias tasks, Cesario also describes task refinements that have significantly advanced their external validity and our contextual understanding of bias. Thus rather than abandonment, a call for "continued improvement" is a far more sensible proposition.

Intergroup contact has long been lauded as a key intervention to reduce prejudice and improve intergroup attitudes among youth. In this review, we summarize classic perspectives and new developments in the intergroup contact literature, highlighting both prospects and challenges associated with achieving desired youth outcomes through contact. First, we review literature showing how positive intergroup outcomes can be facilitated through cultivating optimal conditions for contact, as well as by attending to youth’s emotional responses to contact. We then discuss how desired contact outcomes may be inhibited by limited understanding of ways in which contact strategies may affect youth across developmental stages, as well as by limited focus on societal inequalities and intergroup conflict, which require examination of outcomes beyond prejudice reduction. We also review growing bodies of research on indirect contact strategies—such as extended contact, vicarious contact, and online contact—showing many options that can be used to promote positive relations among youth from diverse backgrounds, beyond the contact literature’s traditional focus on face-to-face interaction. We conclude this review by acknowledging how understanding both prospects and challenges associated with implementing contact strategies can enhance our capacity to prepare youth to embrace group differences and build more inclusive societies.

How do different forms of group alignment influence our attitudes toward outgroups? To answer this, the current fieldwork study explored how identification and identity fusion differentially impact outgroup anxiety, prejudice, and hostility toward rival football fan supporter groups in Australia. The community participants (N = 100) were members of two active fan groups who had experienced a history of intergroup tensions. The findings from the full path model confirmed that the predictor group alignment variables of identification and fusion were correlated, and the two outcome variables of outgroup prejudice and hostility were correlated, as predicted. The findings also revealed that fusion with one's club predicted outgroup hostility, but not prejudice, whereas identification with one's club predicted outgroup prejudice, but not hostility. Additionally, outgroup anxiety was found to significantly mediate the relationship between ingroup identification and outgroup prejudice, whereas a similar relationship was not found for fusion. These findings highlight the differential impact of group alignment (i.e., identification and identity fusion) on social constructs of outgroup anxiety, prejudice, and hostility. Empirically, this is the first study to demonstrate the workings of these distinct group alignment pathways in an applied setting involving hard-core football fans. We discuss the broader implications of these findings for a fuller understanding of the drivers of intergroup tensions and conflict.

This article presents the 2021 JSI special issue on intergroup contact, which we designed to offer a fresh outlook on a rapidly expanding literature on the antecedents, dynamics, and consequences of interactions between members of opposing groups in society-or intergroup contact. We start by discussing the results of a bibliographic search of intergroup contact research between 1937 and 2021 and organizing our analysis around two distinct phases of this research, as they are demarcated in volume and quality by Pettigrew and Tropp's landmark meta-analysis in 2006. We then turn our attention to an overview of the 12 review and commentary articles contributing to the special issue, which reflect advancements in themes, methodologies, and analytics of the last 15 years of research. We argue that this second generation of research has effectively addressed influential and legitimate critiques of the literature and, as a result, led to a more complex and nuanced understanding of intergroup contact that can now be readily harnessed by social cohesion practitioners and policy makers to increase the efficacy of contact-based interventions in society. We conclude by calling on a third generation of research on intergroup contact that fully harnesses diversity of ideas, peoples, and minds and keeps in close check unproductive dynamics that stifle scientific progress, and pose a threat to healthy and safe research communities. Together with the 50 diverse contributors of this special issue, we commit to making the intergroup contact research community, like the topic of intergroup contact itself, diverse and inclusive.

Today, physical and psychological barriers can reduce opportunities for the type of direct face-to-face intergroup contact first identified by Gordon Allport. Consequently, social psychological researchers have identified, developed and tested a burgeoning array of different forms of indirect contact, including, extended contact, Electronic- or E-contact, imagined contact, vicarious contact and parasocial contact. In addition to providing a critical review of each of these forms, we argue that indirect contact is more than just a simple "replacement" for direct contact, but instead has the potential to improve intergroup relations for both minority and majority members in its own right. Relatedly, we acknowledge that indirect contact occurs within specific normative contexts embodied in legislation, institutions, and media and political contents. In fact, we recognize that indirect contact requires an integrative understanding of the role of intergroup norms and affective processes in order to effectively achieve public policy objectives to optimize effects on prejudice reduction.

OBJECTIVES:Adolescence is a time period which confers significant risk for the development of psychopathology. There is increasing consensus within the literature that beliefs about one's emotional experience are important and may present a unique risk factor during this time period. However, to date, there has been no longitudinal examination of the relationship between depression and specific beliefs regarding the acceptability of experiencing and expressing emotion in young people.DESIGN:The present study used a cross-lagged longitudinal design with questionnaires completed at two waves spaced 8 months apart.METHODS:506 participants (50.60% female) aged 12-15 years completed the Beliefs about Emotion questionnaire to assess for beliefs regarding the acceptability of experiencing and expressing emotions, and the depression subscale of the DASS-21 to measure depressive symptoms.RESULTS:Greater depressive symptoms were associated with more negative beliefs about emotion at both time points. More negative beliefs about emotion at T1 did not significantly predict greater depressive symptoms at T2. However, greater depressive symptoms at T1 predicted significantly more negative beliefs about emotions at T2.CONCLUSIONS:Greater beliefs about the unacceptability of experiencing or expressing emotions do not appear to predispose young people to depression. Rather, these beliefs appear to emerge following earlier experiences of depressive symptoms. Further research is needed over multiple measurement waves to further elucidate the relationship between emotion acceptance beliefs and depressive symptoms across adolescence into adulthood and whether such beliefs may predict future depressive episodes indirectly via difficulties in emotion regulation.PRACTITIONER POINTS:Current findings suggest that more negative beliefs about emotion, specifically, beliefs about the unacceptability of experiencing or expressing emotions do not represent a key risk factor for the onset of depressive symptoms in early adolescence. Rather, current evidence suggests these beliefs emerge following depressive symptoms. Given these findings, universal prevention programmes targeting valuation beliefs regarding emotion acceptability are less likely to be effective for this developmental age group. It is important to assess for beliefs that an individual may hold regarding their emotional states alongside symptoms, as these beliefs are associated with greater clinical severity of depressive symptoms. Further research, over multiple measurement waves, is needed to clarify whether emotion acceptability beliefs may predict future depressive episodes indirectly via difficulties in emotion regulation.

While recent research has started to pay more attention to the role of contact strategies on promoting intergroup harmony between Turkish and Kurdish communities, the effectiveness of a novel form of indirect contact strategy, E-contact - where participants engage in a cooperative and structured online interaction with an individual from the outgroup – has not yet been tested. Across two studies ( N Study 1 = 110, N Study 2 = 176), we investigated the effects of E-contact among Turks on promoting positive attitudes and behavioral tendencies towards Kurds, testing outgroup trust and intergroup anxiety as mediators and incorporating a distinction between lower and higher self-disclosure conditions. As expected, E-contact led to more positive outgroup attitudes, as well as greater approach tendencies and decreased avoidance tendencies through increased outgroup trust (Studies 1 and 2) and reduced intergroup anxiety (Study 2). Study 2 also found that E-contact produced lower perceived interethnic conflict through increased outgroup trust. While both lower and higher personal disclosure conditions provided similar effects in the two studies, E-contact with heightened self-disclosure was especially effective at promoting more positive outgroup attitudes and reducing avoidance tendencies. Findings highlight potential benefits of using E-contact as a prejudice-reduction strategy in conflict settings.

As a result of persisting stigma, transgender people experience vastly higher rates of harassment, violence, and mental health issues compared to cisgender people. The current study experimentally evaluated a computer-mediated intergroup contact strategy, called E-contact, to reduce transgender stigma. E-contact is a synchronous, cooperative, goal-directed online interaction which is informed by Allport's intergroup contact theory. In total, 114 cisgender, heterosexual, Australian undergraduates and community members (83 women, 31 men) were randomly allocated to E-contact with an online confederate who either disclosed that they were a transgender woman or a cisgender woman. Following the online interaction, participants then completed measures assessing prior transgender contact and transgender stigma. The findings revealed that transgender E-contact reduced stigma for cisgender men whereas it had no impact on women's already lower levels of stigma. These novel findings have important implications for researchers, policymakers and counsellors interested in developing transgender stigma reduction interventions by (a) highlighting the importance of transgender contact for those individuals with low or poor prior contact and (b) targeting prejudice-prone populations, such as men, who stand to gain the most from such cooperative, goal-directed interventions.

In order to bridge the psychological and physical divide between different groups, researchers have harnessed the positive elements of the Internet to improve intergroup contact. One new and effective Internet strategy is Electronic- or E-contact. Unlike other contact approaches, E-contact is an experimental intergroup intervention that uniquely accommodates Allport's contact theory and recategorisation processes, to create a structured, cooperative, synchronous and goal-directed online text interaction between members from different groups. E-contact has been found to successfully improve intergroup relations between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and Muslims and Catholics in Australia; and reduce bias against lesbian women and gay men, people with schizophrenia, Indigenous Australians, and transgender individuals. This paper discusses the unique engineering and advantages of E-contact interventions in comparison to existing contact strategies, identifies the theories that guide E-contact interventions, provides meta-analytic evidence of its effects, and discusses the strengths, limitations and future directions for E-contact research.