Using Immersive Imagined Contact to Improve Outgroup Attitudes
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2024-07-01
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en
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Abstract
The research on imagined contact is ever-growing, uncovering ways of making it even more
effective in reducing prejudice. We aimed to extend the research by testing a more immersive
and highly detailed imagined contact intervention (based on a real project, called the Living
Library) compared to a conventional intervention and a control condition. Additionally, we
tested whether anxiety and empathy affect the relationship between condition and prejudice
reduction. In a field experiment, we recruited 108 participants across the campus of Radboud
University. In a between-subject design, participants were randomly and equally distributed
between the three conditions: High Vividness, Low Vividness and Control. All groups
received the instructions via audio on headphones and answered a questionnaire regarding
attitudes, intentions, anxiety and empathy on a tablet. As a behavioural measure, it was
recorded whether or not participants took a flyer for the Living Library and whether they then
scanned the QR code on it. The results showed that a more immersive and vivid intervention
was more effective than the control condition in reducing attitudes. We could not find
evidence for a mediation of anxiety and empathy. However, anxiety and empathy on its own
had a relationship with attitudes. We could not find evidence for an effect of condition on
behvaioural intention or behaviour. Future research can find ways of testing different
behavioural measures and testing which factors constitute vividness.
Keywords: intergroup contact, imagined contact, prejudice, intergroup relations, intergoup
bias, indirect contact
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Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen