Positive intergroup contact reliably reduces prejudice, yet little is known about the metacognitive processes involved in recalling prior contact experiences and their impact on outgroup tolerance. The present research examined whether contact interventions that rely on the recollection of past contact experiences can be susceptible to ease of retrieval effects, and the potential impact on intergroup attitudes. Specifically, we tested whether manipulating the number of contact memories participants were asked to recall (five vs. one) impacts on outgroup tolerance, and whether this effect is contingent upon participants’ prior contact experiences. Results of two experiments (N = 220) revealed a moderated mediation effect of contact recollection on outgroup tolerance via perceived ease of retrieval, dependent upon levels of prior contact. Recalling more (five) versus fewer (one) contact memories was perceived as more difficult, and this, in turn, decreased tolerance, specifically for individuals low in prior contact. Countering this negative indirect effect, however, recalling more contact experiences had a positive direct effect. Therefore, greater cognitive effort appears to act as a suppressor of the positive effect of contact recall. Our findings provide insight into meta-cognitive processes involved in recalling autobiographical contact memories, and the resulting impact on intergroup relations.
AbramsD.VauclairM.SwiftH. S. (2011). Predictors of attitudes to age across Europe. Department of Work and Pensions UK technical report. kar.kent.ac.uk/29734/
2.
AllportG. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Addison-Wesley.
3.
AlterA. L.OppenheimerD. M. (2009). Uniting the tribes of fluency to form a metacognitive nation. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13, 219–235. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309341564
4.
BemD. J. (1967). Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena. Psychological Review, 74, 183–200. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0024835
5.
BirtelM. D.VezzaliL.StathiS. (2018). Extended contact and affective factors: A review and suggestions for future research. Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 25, 213–238. https://doi.org/10.4473/TPM25.2.4
6.
BlokS. V.MarkmanA. B. (2005). Fluency in similarity judgements. In BaraB. G.BarsalouL. W.BucciarelliM. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, (pp. 280–285). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
7.
BrownR.MarasP.MasserB.VivianJ.HewstoneM. (2001). Life on the ocean wave: Testing some intergroup hypotheses in a naturalistic setting. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 4, 81–97. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430201004002001
8.
CameronL.RutlandA.BrownR.DouchR. (2006). Changing children’ s intergroup attitudes toward refugees: Testing different models of extended contact. Child Development, 77, 1208–1219. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3878427
9.
CameronL.RutlandA.HossainR.PetleyR. (2011). When and why does extended contact work? The role of high quality direct contact and group norms in the development of positive ethnic intergroup attitudes amongst children. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 14, 193–206. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430210390535
DhontK.van HielA. (2009). We must not be enemies: Interracial contact and the reduction of prejudice among authoritarians. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 172–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.09.022
12.
DhontK.van HielA. (2011). Direct contact and authoritarianism as moderators between extended contact and reduced prejudice: Lower threat and greater trust as mediators. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 14, 223–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430210391121
13.
DijksterhuisA.MacraeC. N.HaddockG. (1999). When recollective experiences matter: Subjective ease of retrieval and stereotyping. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 760–768. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167299025006010
14.
DovidioJ. F.LoveA.SchellhaasF. M.HewstoneM. (2017). Reducing intergroup bias through intergroup contact: Twenty years of progress and future directions. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 20, 606–620. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430217712052
15.
GreifenederR.BlessH. (2007). Relying on accessible content versus accessibility experiences: The case of processing capacity. Social Cognition, 25, 853–881. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2007.25.6.853
16.
HayesA. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation and conditional process analysis. Guildford.
HaywardL. E.TroppL. R.HornseyM. J.BarlowF. K. (2017). Toward a comprehensive understanding of intergroup contact: Descriptions and mediators of positive and negative contact among majority and minority groups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 347–364. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167216685291
HodsonG. (2011). Do ideologically intolerant people benefit from intergroup contact?Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 154–159. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411409025
21.
HodsonG.DhontK. (2015). The person-based nature of prejudice: Individual difference predictors of intergroup negativity. European Review of Social Psychology, 26, 1–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2015.1070018
22.
HodsonG.TurnerR. N.ChomaB. L. (2017). Individual differences in intergroup contact propensity and prejudice reduction. In VezzaliL.StathiS. (Eds.), Intergroup contact theory: Recent developments and future directions (pp. 8–30). Routledge.
23.
HusnuS.PaoliniS. (2019). Positive imagined contact is actively chosen: Exploring determinants and consequences of volitional intergroup imagery in a conflict-ridden setting. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 22, 511–529. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430217747405
24.
KelleyC. M.RhodesM. G. (2002). Making sense and nonsense of experience: Attributions in memory and judgment. In RossB. H. (Ed.), Psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in theory and research (Vol. 41, pp. 293–320). Academic Press.
25.
KirkU.HarveyA. H.MontagueP. R. (2011). Domain expertise insulates against judgment bias by monetary favors through a modulation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 108, 10332–10336. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1019332108
26.
LeboeJ. P.AnsonsT. L. (2006). On misattributing good remembering to a happy past: An investigation into the cognitive roots of nostalgia. Emotion, 6, 596–610. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.6.4.596
27.
LemmerG.WagnerU. (2015). Can we really reduce ethnic prejudice outside the lab? A meta-analysis of direct and indirect contact interventions. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 152–168. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2079
28.
LickD. J.JohnsonK. L. (2015). The interpersonal consequences of processing ease. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24, 143–148. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414558116
MacKinnonD. P.KrullJ. L.LockwoodC. M. (2000). Equivalence of the mediation, confounding and suppression effect. Prevention Science, 1, 173–181. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026595011371
32.
MeleadyR.CrispR. J.DhontK.HopthrowT.TurnerR. N. (2020). Intergroup contact, social dominance, and environmental concern: A test of the cognitive-liberalization hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118, 1146–1164. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000196
33.
MilesE.CrispR. J. (2014). A meta-analytic test of the imagined contact hypothesis. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 17, 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430213510573
34.
OttatiV.IsbellL. (1996). Effects of mood during exposure to target information on subsequently reported judgments: An on-line model of misattribution and correction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 39–53. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.1.39
35.
PaluckE. L. (2007). Kumbuka Kesho (Remember Tomorrow): A radio soap opera and talk show’s impact on community relations and opinions in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Evaluation report for La Benevolencija Great Lakes Reconciliation Project.
36.
PearsonA. R.DovidioJ. F. (2013). Intergroup fluency: How processing experiences shape intergroup cognition and communication. In. ForgasJ. P.LaszloJ.VinczeO. (Eds.), Social cognition and communication (pp. 115–134). Psychology Press.
37.
PettigrewT. F.TroppL. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 751–783. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751
38.
PettyE. P.BriñolP.TormalaZ. L.WegenerD. T. (2007). The role of metacognition in social judgment. In HigginsE. T.KruglanskiA. (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 254–284). Guilford.
39.
PratiF.MoscatelliS.HewstoneM.RubiniM. (2020). The effects of recalling positive and negative contacts on linguistic discrimination towards migrant people. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 89, Article 103970. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.103970
40.
RobinsonJ.WitenbergR.SansonA. (2001). The socialization of tolerance. In AugoustinosM.ReynoldsK. J. (Eds.), Understanding prejudice, racism and social conflict (pp. 73–88). SAGE.
41.
SchwarzN. (2004). Metacognitive experiences in consumer judgment and decision making. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 14, 332–348. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327663jcp1404_2
42.
SchwarzN.BlessH.StrackF.KlumppG.Rittenauer-SchatkaH.SimonsA. (1991). Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 195–202. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.61.2.195
43.
SchwarzN.CloreG. L. (2007). Feelings and phenomenal experiences. In HigginsE. T.KruglanskiA. (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 385–407). Guilford.
44.
TurnerR. N.WildschutT.SedikidesC. (2011). Dropping the weight stigma: Nostalgia improves attitudes toward persons who are overweight. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 103–137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.09.007
Van der NollJ.PoppeE.VerkuytenM. (2010). Political tolerance and prejudice: Differential reactions toward Muslims in the Netherlands. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 32, 46–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973530903540067
47.
VezzaliL.HewstoneM.CapozzaD.GiovanniniD.WölferR. (2014). Improving intergroup relations with extended and vicarious forms of indirect contact. European Review of Social Psychology, 25, 314–389. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2014.982948
48.
VociA.HewstoneM. (2003). Intergroup contact and prejudice toward immigrants in Italy: The mediational role of anxiety and the moderational role of group salience. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 6, 37–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430203006001011
49.
WagnerU.HewstoneM.MachleitU. (1989). Contact and prejudice between Germans and Turks: A correlational study. Human Relations, 42, 561–574. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872678904200701
50.
WestK.BruckmüllerS. (2013). Nice and easy does it: How perceptual fluency moderates the effectiveness of imagined contact. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 254–262. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.11.007
51.
WinkielmanP.SchwarzN.BelliR. F. (1998). The role of ease of retrieval and attribution in memory judgments: Judging your memory as worse despite recalling more events. Psychological Science, 9, 124–126. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00022
52.
WoutD. A.MurphyM. C.SteeleC. M. (2010). When your friends matter: The effect of White students’ racial friendship networks on meta-perceptions and perceived identity contingencies. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 1035–1041. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.06.003
53.
ZhouS.Page-GouldE.AronA.MoyerA.HewstoneM. (2018). The extended contact hypothesis: A meta-analysis on 20 years of research. Personality & Social Psychology Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868318762647
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
