Contact’s prejudice reduction must generalize beyond the immediate situation to matter.

Evidence

But the critical question is whether these altered attitudes generalize beyond the immediate situation to new situations, to the entire outgroup, or even to outgroups not involved in the contact (Pettigrew, 1997, 1998). Such generalization is crucial to the useful application of contact theory. If the changes wrought by contact are limited to the particular situation and the immediate outgroup participants, the practical value of the theory is obviously severely restricted. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Linda R. Tropp, A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup…, 51

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated question: whether attitude change toward specific outgroup members transfers to the whole outgroup — i.e., whether the ‘enemy’ category itself can be redrawn. — connects to: Contact effects persist beyond the immediate contact situation. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Linda R. Tropp, A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup…, 118

Related

• Contact effects persist beyond the immediate contact situation. (similarity 0.91)
• Intergroup contact’s usefulness depends on attitude change generalizing beyond the immediate situation. (similarity 0.91)
• High group salience in studies explains contact’s broad generalization effects (similarity 0.88)
• Intergroup contact is an established general mechanism for reducing prejudice across group types. (similarity 0.87)
• Intergroup contact research has expanded beyond prejudice to test trust, forgiveness, and ingroup perception. (similarity 0.86)
• Intergroup contact reduces prejudice even beyond the groups involved. (similarity 0.86)
• Intergroup contact reduces prejudice across outgroups, and Allport’s conditions are helpful but not essential. (similarity 0.86)
• Contact studies vary in how they generalize findings beyond immediate settings. (similarity 0.85)
• Intergroup contact reduces prejudice best when group categories stay salient. (similarity 0.85)
• Negative factors limiting contact’s prejudice reduction remain the least understood (similarity 0.85)
• Individualized contact fails to generalize positive attitudes beyond the specific person (similarity 0.85)
• Theorists now seek what is necessary, not just helpful, for contact success (similarity 0.84)
• Early skeptics judged intergroup contact research premature and methodologically weak. (similarity 0.84)
• Face-to-face contact with out-group individuals can improve attitudes toward the whole group. (similarity 0.84)
• Contact theory generalizes equally well to nonracial prejudice targets. (similarity 0.83)