An Empirical Investigation of Secondary Transfer Effects of Contact Among Five Ethnic-Cultural Minority Groups in the Netherlands

Abstract

Although the relationship between intergroup contact and prejudice has received pervasive scholarly attention, research on secondary transfer effects (STEs)—whereby positive contact experiences with primary outgroups promote tolerance toward uninvolved secondary outgroups—is still in the early stages. In particular, only a few studies have explored interminority STEs (i.e., primary-to-secondary-minority-outgroup transfer effects). Therefore, concerns about the robustness, the generality, and the underlying psychological mechanisms remain unaddressed. To tackle these gaps in the literature, we investigated STEs in a Dutch representative sample of five ethnic-cultural minority groups (N = 5,157) and an additional national majority group sample (N = 1,046). Our meta-analytic integrations revealed a small but robust overall interminority STE. It was further shown that attitude generalization (i.e., enhanced attitudes toward the primary outgroup) was an explanatory process variable. Follow-up analyses additionally demonstrated significant intergroup STE variation. Taken together, our findings contribute to literature by showing the robustness of interminority STEs in the Dutch context.