Contact, evaluation and social distance: Differentiating majority and minority effects

Contact research has traditionally focused on reducing negative attitudes or emotions towards outgroups. In the current studies we focus on reduced social distance as an outcome of intergroup contact – that is a person's desire to have increased contact with members of a group – and investigate whether outgroup evaluation in associated with these generalizing effects of contact. Drawing on data from a large sample of secondary school students in Australia gathered from majority and minority group members the findings demonstrate that having contact with an outgroup reduces social distance to the group in general. However, for majority group members, evaluation of the minority group is a strong predictor of social distance and evaluation is also improved with intergroup contact. Importantly, evaluations of the outgroup play no such role for minority group members. The findings highlight an alternate model for understanding contact effects and suggest that reduced social distance rather than improved outgroup evaluations may be more important in understanding minority responses to contact.

Research highlights
► Intergroup contact reduces social distance for both majority and minority groups.
► Outgroup evaluation is related to social distance for majority groups.
► For minority groups, outgroup evaluation is unrelated to social distance.