Contact studies with cleaner control groups show larger effects.
Evidence
Another indicator of research rigor concerns the quality of control groups used in the research with between-subjects designs. Table 3 shows that for the samples with between-subjects designs, the less contact the control group had with the target outgroup prior to the study, the larger the mean effect sizes. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Linda R. Tropp, A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup…, 123
Categorization
- XREF: This is a methodological-confounding insight that connects to my knowledge base on how study design rigor inflates or deflates measured effects across psychology and economics. — connects to: Contact’s prejudice-reducing effect is causal, not a selection or publication artifact. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Linda R. Tropp, A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup…, 216
Related
- Stronger contact effects in rigorous studies would confirm the contact-prejudice link. (similarity 0.90)
- More rigorous contact studies show larger prejudice-reduction effects. (similarity 0.90)
- Randomized contact experiments yield near-large prejudice reduction effects. (similarity 0.88)
- Control groups in contact studies often already have outgroup contact, weakening outcomes. (similarity 0.86)
- The contact-prejudice effect varies across samples by design and context (similarity 0.84)
- The contact-prejudice effect may be partly an artifact of publication bias. (similarity 0.84)
- Contact’s prejudice-reducing effect is causal, not a selection or publication artifact. (similarity 0.84)
- Contact effects persist beyond the immediate contact situation. (similarity 0.84)
- Participant selection bias does not inflate contact-prejudice effect sizes. (similarity 0.83)
- No meta-analysis of intergroup contact research existed before this study. (similarity 0.83)
- Meta-analysis pools all studies to estimate effect sizes and moderators (similarity 0.82)
- Theorists now seek what is necessary, not just helpful, for contact success (similarity 0.82)
- Contact studies vary in how they generalize findings beyond immediate settings. (similarity 0.81)
- Subjective literature reviews suffer selection biases that meta-analysis avoids. (similarity 0.81)
- Negative factors limiting contact’s prejudice reduction remain the least understood (similarity 0.81)