Intergroup friendship reduces prejudice because it simultaneously engages four distinct processes.

Evidence

Three additional problems limit the contact hypothesis. 1. Writers have overburdened the hypothesis with too many facilitating, but not essential, conditions. 2. The hypothesis does not address process. It predicts only when positive contact effects will occur, not how and why. The chapter details four interrelated processes underlying contact effects: learning about the outgroup, changing behavior, generating affective ties, and ingroup reappraisal. Intergroup friendship has strong positive effects, because it potentially entails all four processes. — Thomas F. Pettigrew, Intergroup Contact Theory, 109

Categorization

• DEFINE: Enumerates the four mechanisms — learning about the outgroup, changing behavior, affective ties, ingroup reappraisal — that the chapter’s process model rests on.
• SEED: Angle: ‘The four things friendship does that argument can’t’ — why unstructured closeness outperforms debate in reducing prejudice.