Priming Mediated Vicarious Intergroup Contact: How Narrative Focus Influences Attitude Changes Toward Gay People,Same-Sex Family,and Social Dominance

Abstract

Mediated exposure to outgroups leads to attitude change. Through a controlled lab experiment, this study examines how television narrative focus (i.e., politics, religion, parenting, technology) primes people’s explicit and implicit attitudes toward gay people, attitudes toward same-sex family, and social dominance orientation, in the mediated context of a gay family having conflicting opinion exchange with heterosexual characters. The results showed that while people’s explicit prejudice toward gay people decreased after exposure, their prejudice toward same-sex families and social dominance orientation increased. That is, even though mediated outgroup contact could prime people to think positively about the outgroup, it also simultaneously increases people’s tendency to maintain current social order. Attitudes toward gay people and social dominance orientation varied depending on the narrative focus. Implications are discussed.