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Extended contact theory proposes that knowledge of ingroup-outgroup friendships leads to reductions of intergroup bias by reducing ignorance about the outgroup and intergroup anxiety, and by increasing awareness of positive outgroup exemplars (e.g., observation of friendly behavior towards an ingroup member), and inclusion of other in the self. Over a one-year period we examined extended contact among home country friends of international students who had direct contact with British people through their study period in Britain. This provides a stringent test of extended contact theory, both due to the longitudinal design, and the inclusion of both actual and perceived naturally arising extended contact. As predicted by extended contact theory, increases in extended contact over time predicted all variables but intergroup anxiety. There was also some evidence for (weaker) reversed causal influence between prejudice and other variables. Importantly, the quality of contact experienced by the direct contact sample (international students) predicted all dependent measures in the matched extended contact sample in their home countries. Results are discussed in terms of the promise of extended contact theory for intergroup relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits of direct, personal contact with members of another group are well established empirically. This Special Issue complements that body of work by demonstrating the effects of various forms of indirect contact on intergroup attitudes and relations. Indirect contact includes (a) extended contact: learning that an ingroup member is friends with an outgroup member, (b) vicarious contact: observing an ingroup member interact with an outgroup member, and (c) imagined contact: imagining oneself interacting with an outgroup member. The effects of indirect contact not only occur independently of direct contact, they often involve distinct psychological mechanisms. The present article briefly reviews work on direct intergroup contact and then discusses recent theoretical and empirical developments in the study of extended contact, vicarious contact, and imagined contact. We consider the similarities and distinctions in the dynamics of these forms of indirect contact and conclude by identifying promising directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crossed-categorisation and extended contact are two different bases for improving intergroup relations. Crossed-categorisation refers to the crossing of two dichotomous social dimensions, resulting in four groups (double ingroup, double outgroup, and two mixed groups). The extended contact hypothesis proposes that knowledge about ingroup-outgroup friendships can lead to more positive intergroup attitudes. The present research combined extended contact and crossed-categorisation to test whether black and white university students' view of the police, perceived racism of police, desired closeness to police, and willingness to join police were improved through extended contact with a black (or white) police officer via a black (or white) acquaintance (four possibilities). Doubleoutgroup extended contact for both white and black participants, and mixed-group extended contact for whites (showing a social exclusion pattern), were associated with worse public-police relations. In contrast, double-ingroup extended contact for whites, and mixed-group extended contact for blacks (showing a social inclusion pattern) were associated with improved relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A longitudinal study (N = 109) of interschool contact and attitudes was conducted to test Allport's (1954) Contact Hypothesis and Brown and Hewstone's (2005) addendum to it on the moderating role of typicality in the contact-attitude relationship. Three different measures of intergroup attitude were employed, including a new measure of infrahumanisation (Leyens et al., 2000). Support for the hypotheses was found on all three measures in the longitudinal analyses. Quantity of contact with a member of the outgroup was consistently associated with more favourable attitudes towards the outgroup as a whole. Importantly, contact was found to predict attitude but the reverse causal path was not significant. Also, on one measure there was an indication that the effects of contact quality were more beneficial when the contact persons were seen as typical of the outgroup than when they were not. It is concluded that, as originally hypothesised by Allport, contact with members of an outgroup can improve intergroup attitudes, but especially if those people can be seen as representative of their group. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present work, we addressed the relationship between parental leave policies and social norms. Using a pre-registered, cross-national approach, we examined the relationship between parental leave policies and the perception of social norms for the gender division of childcare. In this study, 19,259 students (11,924 women) from 48 countries indicated the degree to which they believe childcare is (descriptive norm) and should be (prescriptive norm) equally divided among mothers and fathers. Policies were primarily operationalized as the existence of parental leave options in the respective country. The descriptive and prescriptive norms of equal division of childcare were stronger when parental leave was available in a country - also when controlling for potential confounding variables. Moreover, analyses of time since policy change suggested that policy change may initially affect prescriptive norms and then descriptive norms at a later point. However, due to the cross-sectional nature of the data, drawing causal inferences is difficult., (© 2024 British Psychological Society.)