Fiona A. White, Stefano Verrelli, Rachel D. Maunder & Angus Kervinen (2018) Using Electronic Contact to Reduce Homonegative Attitudes, Emotions, and Behavioral Intentions Among Heterosexual Women and Men: A Contemporary Extension of the Contact Hypothesis, The Journal of Sex Research, DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2018.1491943
Abstract
The current study experimentally examined the potential for a contemporary extension of the contact hypothesis, known as electronic contact, or E-contact, to reduce sexual prejudice, intergroup anxiety, and avoidant behavioral intentions among heterosexuals. It also extended the sexual minority contact literature by examining the role of participant and interaction partner sex as a possible boundary condition of this contact–prejudice relationship. To test our hypotheses, 140 heterosexual female and male university students were randomly allocated to interact with a homosexual or heterosexual, female or male E-contact partner, in a collaborative and text-only online interaction before completing the outcome measures. Overall, the results demonstrated that interacting online with a female, as opposed to a male, homosexual E-contact partner reduced heterosexual men’s feelings of intergroup anxiety, which in turn was associated with lower sexual prejudice and outgroup avoidance. For heterosexual women, however, E-contact did not influence the outcome variables. In the context of sexual prejudice, these results suggest that E-contact may be particularly useful as a prejudice-reduction strategy among individuals who typically require it most: heterosexual men.
Despite general improvements in public opinion and policy, sexual prejudice toward lesbians and gay men persists (Herek & McLemore, 2013) and continues to have adverse impacts on sexual minority health (Meyer & Northridge, 2007; Verrelli, White, Harvey, & Pulciani, 2018). Consequently, considerable research has focused on identifying strategies to reduce sexual prejudice (Bartoş, Berger, & Hegarty, 2014). To date, one of the most reliable predictors of decreased sexual prejudice is positive contact with lesbians and gay men (Smith, Axelton, & Saucier, 2009). In recent decades, the Internet has rapidly become one of the most effective ways to facilitate contact between individuals. Despite this significant shift toward computer-mediated communication, electronic contact, or E-contact, as a strategy to improve sexual minority relations has remained untested.
Therefore, to advance this literature, the current study sought to experimentally evaluate the effects of E-contact on heterosexuals’ homonegative attitudes (i.e., sexual prejudice), emotions (i.e., intergroup anxiety), and behavioral intentions (i.e., outgroup avoidance), as well as to examine when and for whom sexual minority E-contact is most beneficial.
Intergroup Contact
Over 60 years after its original formulation, Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis remains one of the dominant theoretical and applied frameworks for reducing prejudice and improving intergroup relations. This hypothesis proposes that positive contact between groups is important for successful prejudice reduction and is particularly effective when the social interaction adheres to four facilitating conditions, including equal status among the groups, contact characterized by intergroup cooperation rather than competition, a common goal to guide the interaction, and support from authorities. In support of this hypothesis, Pettigrew and Tropp’s (2006) seminal meta-analytic review of published and unpublished research revealed a small to moderate relationship between direct intergroup contact and reduced prejudice toward a variety of outgroups, which increased significantly when all of Allport’s key conditions were satisfied.
Although Allport (1954) originally conceptualized his contact hypothesis in relation to direct contact between racial and ethnic groups, intergroup contact with lesbians and gay men has also been associated with reduced prejudice toward sexual minorities (e.g., Bartoş et al., 2014; Baunach, Burgess, & Muse, 2009; Cunningham & Melton, 2013; Herek, 1988; Herek & Capitanio, 1996; Herek & Glunt, 1993; Hodson, Harry, & Mitchell, 2009; Lytle, Dyar, Levy, & London, 2017; MacInnis, Page-Gould, & Hodson, 2017; Mereish & Poteat, 2015; Smith et al., 2009; Vonofakou, Hewstone, & Voci, 2007; West & Hewstone, 2012). One important mechanism that has been proposed to explain this effect is the grouptargeted emotion of intergroup anxiety, which refers to the threat and uncertainty an individual may feel when anticipating or experiencing contact with the outgroup (Stephan & Stephan, 1985). Specifically, research has shown that direct contact with lesbians and gay men is associated with decreased feelings of intergroup anxiety, which in turn is associated with reduced sexual prejudice (Lytle et al., 2017; Mereish & Poteat, 2015; Vonofakou et al., 2007; West & Hewstone, 2012).
Although this research has been indispensable to our understanding of intergroup contact as a prejudice-reduction strategy, the majority of this research has focused on face-toface interactions. In the current digital age, many individuals rely on electronic devices and the Internet to maintain existing relationships and, more importantly, to forge new ones. For example, 68% of all American adults now use social networking sites, such as Facebook (Pew Research Center, 2016), and over 57% of teenagers report that they have made at least one new friend online and prefer instant messaging to face-to-face contact for daily communication (Pew Research Center, 2015b). As the popularity of social networking continues to grow for both women and men, and across all ages, races, and socioeconomic status groups (Pew Research Center, 2015a), we can expect computer-mediated communication to become increasingly valuable in facilitating contact between individuals, especially among those who would otherwise have had limited opportunity to meet. In recognizing this growing potential, researchers have recently revised Allport’s (1954) original contact hypothesis to include intergroup interactions that occur online (Amichai-Hamburger & McKenna, 2006; White, Harvey, & Abu-Rayya, 2015). This contemporary form of intergroup contact has been termed Econtact . Consistent with Allport’s original conceptualization of contact as an intergroup phenomenon, E-contact enables both ingroup and outgroup members to be active participants in the same interaction, even if they never meet physically (White, Harvey, & Verrelli, 2015).
Past research has found support for the benefits of Econtact for improving intergroup relations. For example, White and Abu-Rayya (2012; see also White, Abu-Rayya, & Weitzel, 2014) developed and tested a structured E-contact program to improve relations between Muslim and Christian secondary school students who attended religiously segregated schools in Australia. The program required groups of two Muslim and two Christian students in the same grade to collaborate online via a synchronous, text-only chat room to complete curriculum-based classroom activities. The results demonstrated that E-contact reduced intergroup bias and anxiety, and improved outgroup knowledge, compared to a control condition involving interactions between two dyads from the same religious group. Moreover, reduced intergroup anxiety was found to mediate the relationship between Econtact and reduced prejudice (White & Abu-Rayya, 2012). Comparable results have been found when administering similar E-contact interventions between diverse religious (e.g., Catholic and Protestant students in Northern Ireland; White, Turner, Verrelli, Harvey, & Hanna, in press) and ethnic groups (e.g., Israeli and Ethiopian students in Israel; Abu-Rayya, 2017), and as an intervention to reduce the stigma toward schizophrenia (Maunder, White, & Verrelli, 2018).
Although there has been growing empirical support for the benefits of E-contact, its potential to improve sexual minority relations currently remains untested. Read more via Journal of Sex