Friedrich Funke

Does contact reduce prejudice or does prejudice reduce contact? A longitudinal test of the contact hypothesis among majority and minority groups in three European countries.

A widely researched panacea for reducing intergroup prejudice is the contact hypothesis. However, few longitudinal studies can shed light on the direction of causal processes: from contact to prejudice reduction (contact effects) or from prejudice to contact reduction (prejudice effects). The authors conducted a longitudinal field survey in Germany, Belgium, and England with school students. The sample comprised members of both ethnic minorities (n = 512) and ethnic majorities (n = 1,143). Path analyses yielded both lagged contact effects and prejudice effects: Contact reduced prejudice, but prejudice also reduced contact. Furthermore, contact effects were negligible for minority members. These effects were obtained for 2 indicators of prejudice: negative intergroup emotions and desire for social distance. For both majority and minority members, contact effects on negative emotions were stronger when outgroup contacts were perceived as being typical of their group. Contact effects were also mediated by intergroup anxiety. This mediating mechanism was impaired for minority members because of a weakened effect of anxiety on desire for social distance. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Xenophobia and right-wing-extremism in German youth groups — Some evidence against unidimensional misinterpretations

Abstract The antecedents of violent and xenophobian orientations among young people have been extensively studied after the German reunification, producing various complementary or contradictory theoretical approaches. The present study presents statistical analyses of survey data collected from 1,177 adolescents in six German towns. These serve as the base for a bidimensional structural analysis of extreme right-wing orientation. The overlap between extreme right-wing social orientation and variables, such as gender, educational level or affinity to various youth cultures is analyzed and discussed. It is shown that there is a great danger of misinterpretation if one tries to generalize isolated results concerning xenophobian and violence-related orientations among German youths.

Facing the Dreaded: Does Mindfulness Facilitate Coping with Distressing Experiences? A Moderator Analysis

Increasing evidence shows that mindfulness is positively related to mental health; however, the nature of this relationship is not fully understood. The current study used structural equation modeling to investigate the hypothesis that mindfulness moderates the association between the occurrence of unavoidable distressing experiences (UDE) and mental health. Participants from a community sample (N = 376) completed the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, the Positive and Negative Affect Scale, the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Inventory of Approach and Avoidance Motivation, and the Incongruence Scale. Results indicated that mindfulness moderated the association between unavoidable distressing events and psychopathological symptoms/negative affect. Thus, mindfulness may contribute to enhance the ability to cope with UDE and thus mitigate the detrimental effects of these experiences on mental health.

Are we looking for positivity or similarity in a partner's outlook on life? Similarity predicts perceptions of social attractiveness and relationship quality

Previous research has shown that people with an optimistic life orientation are perceived as socially more attractive than pessimists. However, following the similarity-attraction hypothesis, we assumed that both the perceivers and the targets life orientation affects perceptions of social attractiveness. Moreover, we were interested in how the composition of romantic partners’ life orientation (similar vs. dissimilar) affects perceived relationship quality. The results of an experimental online study (N = 316) confirmed previous findings: Overall, optimists were perceived as socially more attractive than pessimists. Furthermore, perceivers’ life orientation moderated that effect, which was larger with optimistic than with pessimistic perceivers. Moreover, with respect to ongoing relationships optimistic participants indicated higher relationship quality if they perceived their partners as similarly optimistic. The findings are in line with the similarity-attraction hypothesis. They are discussed with regard to the benefits of optimism in social interactions and relationships.

Fremdenfeindlichkeit — eine komplexe Suche

Um zunachst die Ziel-Variable „Einstellungen gegenuber Fremden bzw. Auslandern“ operationalisieren zu konnen, konstruierten wir eine 9 Items umfassende Skala mit einem 5-stufigen Antwortmodell (1= lehne ich ab; 5= stimme ich zu). Bei der Itemkonstruktion stutzten wir uns auf eigene empirische Erfahrungen (Frindte 1995) und auf die Vorurteilsskala von Pettigrew (Pettigrew 1958, Pettigrew & Meertens 1994).1 Tabelle 1 (nachste Seite) gibt die Items und die prozentuale Zustimmung (Skalenwert 5) zu jedem Item, getrennt fur die mannlichen und weiblichen Jugendlichen in Ostdeutschland (Brandenburg und Thuringen) und Westdeutschland (Bayern und Schleswig-Holstein) wieder.

Gegenwärtige politische Orientierung und der Bezug zum Nationalsozialismus

Wenn das Phanomen rechter politischer Orientierungen innerhalb unserer Gesellschaft erklart werden soll, bleiben Argumentationen nicht aus, die Verbindungen zur spezifisch deutschen Vergangenheit herstellen. Neben Bezugen zur jungeren Vergangenheit, insbesondere in den neuen Bundeslandern, finden sich wie selbstverstandlich Assoziationen zum Nationalsozialismus.1