Opportunities for contact,contact valence and outgroup attitudes: the moderating role of outgroup anger / Oportunidades de contacto,valencia de contacto y actitudes del exogrupo: el rol moderador de la ira del exogrupo

Abstract

Opportunities for contact reduce prejudice via positive contact and increase it via negative contact. However, the relative importance of these routes varies considerably, and it is unclear what processes are crucial in this respect. The analysis of a sample of Romanian students (N = 232) revealed that outgroup anger moderated both the paths from opportunities for contact to contact and from contact to positive outgroup attitudes: at low levels of anger, the positive route was dominant, whereas at higher levels of anger, the negative route reduced the positive effects. These results underline an important connection between the waning and waxing of intergroup conflict and intergroup contact.