Improved intergroup attitudes often fail to transfer to new situations

Evidence

GENERALIZATION ACROSS SITUATIONS World War II research showed major improvements in white attitudes toward black soldiers after combat together (Stouffer et al 1949). Yet whites continued to favor racially separate post exchanges (military stores). Other early studies also demonstrated limited generalization across situations (Biesanz & Smith 1951, Deutsch & Collins 1951, Harding & Hogrefe 1952, Minard 1952, Reitzes 1953, Saenger & Gilbert 1950). Recall that the first cooperative encounters of the Robbers’ Cave study did not generalize either. Only the cumulative effect of repeated optimal situations Annu. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 60

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that attitude change is situation-bound rather than trait-like cuts against how most people intuitively model prejudice reduction, and it reframes decades of intervention design.
• XREF: Connects to Allport’s original contact conditions and to the classic situationism/character debate in social psychology. — connects to: Depolarization interventions produce small, decaying effects that fail to scale or shift downstream attitudes — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard: Evaluating…, 18; Modest affective depolarization gains fail to shift downstream attitudes and behaviors. — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard: Evaluating…, 41