An ever-growing list of necessary conditions makes real-world contact impossible

Evidence

A lot of factors have to be just right to make this cookie cutter mechanism happen. But the earth is a big place, and cookie cutting is discovered perhaps once a decade or even less somewhere on the whole surface of the planet. We are permitted therefore to concoct a mechanism where many factors have to be just right. The other conjectures all seem far less likely: steam explosions with no source of steam, meteor strikes with no shred of evidence for them, and mischievous aliens. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 719 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Social scientists began to theorize about intergroup contact after World War II (Watson 1947, Williams 1947). Allport’s (1954) hypothesis proved the most influential by specifying the critical situational conditions for intergroup contact to reduce prejudice. His hypothesis has received extensive attention both for its rare theoretical status and policy importance (Pettigrew 1971). Oddly, for a discipline that focuses on face-to-face interaction, social psychology rarely decomposes situations into their basic components. Allport’s attempt is a prominent exception. And it has proven useful in applied settings, such as in the distinction between racial desegregation and integration in schools (Pettigrew 1975). — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 8 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Cook (1984) found large individual differences in the effects of even optimal contact; 40% of his experimental subjects, compared with 12% of controls, evinced sweeping attitude changes. Yet other experimental subjects averaged little change. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 93 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Unbounded lists of qualifying conditions make contact theory unfalsifiable — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 30; Specifying situational conditions makes contact theory both theoretically rare and policy useful — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 8; Contact without the four optimal conditions can increase prejudice over time — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 16 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Rare events justify mechanisms requiring many precise conditions #complicates (0.82) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 719
• Specifying situational conditions makes contact theory both theoretically rare and policy useful #complicates (0.80) — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 8
• Even optimally structured contact changes some people not at all #complicates (0.78) — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 93
• Reliable clusters can make new relationships rationally not worth pursuing #complicates (0.72)