Kerry Kawakami

Intergroup Contact: The Past, Present, and the Future

The Contact Hypothesis has long been considered one of psychology’s most effective strategies for improving intergroup relations. In this article, we review the history of the development of the Contact Hypothesis, and then we examine recent developments in this area. Specifically, we consider the conditions that are required for successful contact to occur (e.g. cooperation), investigate basic psychological processes that may mediate the consequent reductions in bias (e.g. decreased intergroup anxiety, increased common group representations), and explore factors that can facilitate the generalization of the benefits of intergroup contact in terms of more positive attitudes toward the outgroup as a whole (e.g. increased group salience). We conclude by outlining the contents of the contributions to this Special Issue on Intergroup Contact, highlighting common themes, and identifying findings that suggest directions for future research.

Mimicry and Prosocial Behavior

Recent studies have shown that mimicry occurs unintentionally and even among strangers. In the present studies, we investigated the consequences of this automatic phenomenon in order to learn more about the adaptive function it serves. In three studies, we consistently found that mimicry increases pro-social behavior. Participants who had been mimicked were more helpful and generous toward other people than were non-mimicked participants. These beneficial consequences of mimicry were not restricted to behavior directed toward the mimicker, but included behavior directed toward people not directly involved in the mimicry situation. These results suggest that the effects of mimicry are not simply due to increased liking for the mimicker, but are due to increased prosocial orientation in general.

Why can't we just get along? Interpersonal biases and interracial distrust

The authors review a series of studies that illustrate how one form of contemporary racial bias of Whites, aversive racism, can shape different perspectives of Blacks and Whites in ways that can undermine race relations. This research demonstrates that contemporary racism among Whites is subtle, often unintentional, and unconscious but that its effects are systematically damaging to race relations by fostering miscommunication and distrust. In particular, the authors examine the effects of aversive racism on outcomes for Blacks (e.g., in selection decisions), on the ways that Whites behave in interracial interactions, in the impressions that Whites and Blacks form of each other in these interactions, and on the task efficiency of interracial dyads.

Racial Prejudice and Stereotype Activation

The main goal of the present study was to investigate the interrelationships among preudice and the endorsement and activation of cultural stereotypes. The endorsement of stereotypes was examined using an attribution estimate measure. Stereotype activation was examined using a pronunciation task with short and long stimulus onset asynchronies (300 ms and 2000 ms) to induce automatic and controlled processing. As expected, high prejudiced participants endorsed cultural stereotypes to a greater extent than low prejudiced participants. Furthermore, for high prejudiced participants, Black category labels facilitated stereo-type activation under automatic and controlled processing conditions. For low prejudiced participants, no evidence of differential activation was found for stereotypes relative to non-stereotypes as a function of category labels under either processing condition. In addition, stereotype activation was correlated with individual differences in stereotype endorsement.

The Reliability of Implicit Stereotyping

Recent research has moved beyond the mere documentation of implicit stereotypes to consider how these measures relate to attitudes and predict behaviors. Little is known, however, about the basic psychometric properties of these measures. The present research includes three studies that provide evidence for test-retest reliability of implicit stereotypes when supraliminal priming of associated traits precedes a group categorization decision (Experiments 1 and 2) and when subliminal presentation of a group member precedes a decision about trait applicability (Experiment 3). Across the studies, significant evidence of implicit racial and gender stereotyping was obtained. These effects showed moderate test-retest reliability of comparable levels from 1 hour to 3 weeks. Implications of these findings for the use of implicit measures are considered.

Automatic Stereotyping: Category, Trait, and Behavioral Activations

On the basis of theorizing that proposes that category representations include a variety of associations and not simply trait information, two studies investigated whether the automatic activation of stereotypic traits following category priming is a necessary mediator of automatic social behavior. The results across both studies demonstrated an automatic behavior effect; participants primed with the elderly responded more slowly to general lexical decisions than participants not primed with the elderly. The results also provide evidence for automatic stereotypic trait activation; participants primed with the elderly responded faster to stereotypic than nonstereotypic traits. Moreover, consistent with the view that stereotypes are multicomponential, category priming predicted automatic social behavior in ways independent of mediation-by-trait activation.

Mispredicting affective and behavioral responses to racism.

Contemporary race relations are marked by an apparent paradox: Overt prejudice is strongly condemned, yet acts of blatant racism still frequently occur. We propose that one reason for this inconsistency is that people misunderstand how they would feel and behave after witnessing racism. The present research demonstrates that although people predicted that they would be very upset by a racist act, when people actually experienced this event they showed relatively little emotional distress. Furthermore, people overestimated the degree to which a racist comment would provoke social rejection of the racist. These findings suggest that racism may persevere in part because people who anticipate feeling upset and believe that they will take action may actually respond with indifference when faced with an act of racism.

Social Identity and Affect as Determinants of Collective Action - toward an Integration of Relative Deprivation and Social Identity Theories

The goal of this paper is to compare and contrast relative deprivation and social identity theories in an attempt to form an integrative model of social comparison. The model posits that, depending on the determinants of salience, people come to categorize themselves as individuals or group members. When personal or group self-identities are salient, individuals engage in intragroup or intergroup comparisons respectively. Negative outcomes from these comparisons result in negative social identities. These personal or group self-identities, in combination with perceptions of the position as illegitimate, are hypothesized to result in feelings of personal and group relative deprivation (RD) respectively. Depending on their feelings of RD, individuals adopt individual or collective actions to change their status. When personal RD is experienced, individuals will first attempt normative individual actions to change their status. If these attempts fail, non-normative individual action strategies will be adopted. When group RD is experienced, individuals will initially attempt non-normative collective actions to change their status. If these type of actions fail, individuals will attempt normative collective actions.

Mind the Gap: Increasing Associations Between the Self and Blacks With Approach Behaviors

Although perceived differences between outgroup social categories and the self are often cited as a major contributor to prejudice and intergroup tension, surprisingly few studies have examined ways to improve associations between the self and racial outgroups. The present research investigated one strategy to increase these associations-approach training. Specifically, 3 studies investigated the impact of training participants to conceptually approach Blacks on 3 separate measures: 2 response latency measures indexing the strength of association between the self and Blacks and a psychophysiological measure indexing brain activity in response to Blacks in the context of the self. A fourth study examined the link between earlier research on the impact of approach training on implicit prejudice against Blacks and the current results related to self-Black associations. Together, these findings provided consistent evidence that training in approaching Blacks increases associations between the self and Blacks that in turn reduce implicit prejudice against Blacks.

In Perfect Harmony: Synchronizing the Self to Activated Social Categories

The self-concept is one of the main organizing constructs in the behavioral sciences because it influences how people interpret their environment, the choices they make, whether and how they initiate action, and the pursuit of specific goals. Because belonging to social groups and feeling interconnected is critical to human survival, the authors propose that people spontaneously change their working self-concept so that they are more similar to salient social categories. Specifically, 4 studies investigated whether activating a variety of social categories (i.e., jocks, hippies, the overweight, Blacks, and Asians) increased associations between the self and the target category. Whereas Studies 1 and 2 focused on associations between stereotypic traits and the self, Studies 3 and 4 examined self-perceptions and self-categorizations, respectively. The results provide consistent evidence that following social category priming, people synchronized the self to the activated category. Furthermore, the findings indicate that factors that influence category activation, such as social goals, and factors that induce a focus on the interconnectedness of the self, such as an interdependent vs. independent self-construal, can impact this process. The implications of changes to the working self-concept for intergroup relations are discussed.