Professor Stefania Paolini (Durham): How to achieve and maintain social cohesion School of Psychology and Neuroscience Friday seminar series

How to achieve and maintain social cohesion when intergroup contact is positive and negative?
Old Library, 21st of March at 1pm, hosted by Dr Nicole Tausch

Abstract:
This research paper presents a program of research on valence asymmetries in interactions between members of opposing social groups, or ‘intergroup contact'. Due to a focus on corrective prejudice reduction, social psychological analyses of intergroup contact have traditionally shied away from investigating negative intergroup contact. They have failed to compare the impact and prevalence of negative and positive intergroup contact and have provided a simpler and more optimistic report for intergroup contact than brother disciplines and against expansive evidence of negative biases in many areas of psychology. I will present a program of research testing valence asymmetries in intergroup contact and showing that the cumulative evidence currently suggests that negative intergroup contact is a relatively rare occurrence but is likely to impact broader intergroup dynamics more heavily than the more frequent but less influential positive intergroup contact. I will showcase results for key theory-driven moderators, including those emerging from a meta-analysis of intergroup contact research recently accepted on Psychological Bulletin placing a sharp focus on self-selection processes in and out of contact and contact volition. I will conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for theory, policy, and social intervention.