Contact reduces prejudice only under equal-status, intimate, stereotype-defying conditions
Evidence
From the student papers especially, Allport noted the contrasting effects of intergroup contact – often reducing but sometimes exacerbating prejudice. To account for these inconsistencies, Allport adopted a “positive factors” approach. Reduced prejudice will result, he held, when four positive features of the contact situation are present: (a) equal status between the groups, (b) common goals, (c) intergroup cooperation, and (d) the support of authorities, law, or custom. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1665
Based on the scant research available, Williams (1947) stressed that intergroup contact would maximally reduce prejudice when: (a) the two groups share similar status, interests, and tasks; (b) the situation fosters personal, intimate intergroup contact; (c) the participants do not fit the stereotyped conceptions of their groups; and (d) the activities cut across group lines. These general principles will be familiar to anyone versed in Gordon Allport’s framework. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1661
Categorization
- DEFINE: The canonical statement of Allport’s four optimal conditions — equal status, common goals, cooperation, institutional support.
- XREF: Complements the earlier social-capital and institution readings; the ‘support of authorities, law, or custom’ condition parallels institutional-enforcement themes. — connects to: Contact alone does not enable fluent multi-ethnic interaction. — Sivamohan Valluvan, Conviviality and Multiculture: A…, 17; Even under apartheid and segregation, intergroup contact reduced prejudice. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Linda R. Tropp, A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup…, 227
- SEED: Article angle: the four conditions as a checklist for why diversity initiatives (which supply goals and authority but not equal status or real cooperation) often fail.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 1665; John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 1661