Reading Between the “Lives”: A Living Library Impact Study on Measuring Spreading Gained Insights and Attitudes
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2023-07-07
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en
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Abstract
Prejudices are harmful sources of attitudes which can make the lives of marginalized groups such as LGBTQ individuals, refugees, or people of different ethical identities’ daily lives really difficult. Therefore, more research should focus on effective ways of combatting prejudices. One theory with this aim is intergroup contact theory, which is based initiating contact between members of different groups to improve negative attitudes. The current study investigated Living Library, an intergroup contact intervention based on participants as “Readers” having contact with members of different social groups (“Books”), and its impact on outgroup attitudes and behavioral intentions. A between-subjects study was conducted with 2 groups: pre-conversation and post-conversation. Both groups received a follow up survey 9 days later, to also investigate sustained effects. The results showed that the intervention was successful in improving outgroup attitudes and that these effects were mediated by intergroup anxiety. However, intention of spreading gained insights from the conversation did not lead to behavior. Furthermore, although the changes in attitudes were in the expected direction over time, this effect was not significant. Future research can benefit from using a larger time frame to collect more data and further investigation into sustained effects in different samples.
Keywords: prejudices, outgroup attitudes, intergroup anxiety, empathy, perspective taking, knowledge, Intergroup Contact Theory, Living Library
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Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen