Thomas F. Pettigrew, Linda R. Tropp — A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory

56 published claims from this book.

• A meta-analysis synthesized 515 studies with 250,089 participants across 38 nations.
• A null correlation between sample size and effect size indicates minimal publication bias.
• Allport’s contact conditions boost prejudice reduction more for nonracial than racial intergroup contexts
• Allport’s contact conditions function as a package, not separable variables.
• Allport’s four contact conditions can be reliably coded from program descriptions.
• Allport’s optimal contact conditions enhance but are not necessary for reducing prejudice.
• Authority sanction alone achieves the same prejudice reduction as all conditions combined
• Authority sanction alone predicts contact–prejudice reduction as strongly as multiple optimal conditions do.
• Casual tourism contact reduces prejudice far less than structured or recreational contact
• Comparing published and unpublished studies tests whether reporting bias inflates effects.
• Contact effects persist beyond the immediate contact situation.
• Contact studies vary in how they generalize findings beyond immediate settings.
• Contact studies with cleaner control groups show larger effects.
• Contact theory generalizes equally well to nonracial prejudice targets.
• Contact theory transfers equivalently from racial to nonracial target groups
• Contact’s prejudice reduction must generalize beyond the immediate situation to matter.
• Contact’s prejudice-reducing effect is causal, not a selection or publication artifact.
• Control groups in contact studies often already have outgroup contact, weakening outcomes.
• Cross-group friendship especially reduces prejudice through intimacy and equal-status contact.
• Cross-orientation contact reduces prejudice more than contact with the mentally ill
• Desegregated housing projects reduced White residents’ prejudice toward Black neighbors.
• Early skeptics judged intergroup contact research premature and methodologically weak.
• Even apartheid-era unequal-status contact reduced White prejudice
• Even under apartheid and segregation, intergroup contact reduced prejudice.
• File-drawer tests assume uncovered unpublished studies form a random sample.
• High group salience in studies explains contact’s broad generalization effects
• Institutional support matters most for contact but backfires under competition or unequal status.
• Intergroup contact is an established general mechanism for reducing prejudice across group types.
• Intergroup contact reduces prejudice across outgroups, and Allport’s conditions are helpful but not essential.
• Intergroup contact reduces prejudice more strongly than prejudice drives avoidance of contact
• Intergroup contact research has expanded beyond prejudice to test trust, forgiveness, and ingroup perception.
• Intergroup contact theory originated in a 1947 synthesis of 102 propositions.
• Intergroup contact’s usefulness depends on attitude change generalizing beyond the immediate situation.
• Mere exposure to outgroup members reduces prejudice even without optimal conditions.
• Meta-analyses overestimate effect sizes because null results go unpublished.
• More rigorous contact studies show larger prejudice-reduction effects.
• Most prejudice-reducing contact occurs outside Allport’s presumed optimal conditions.
• Negative factors limiting contact’s prejudice reduction remain the least understood
• No meta-analysis of intergroup contact research existed before this study.
• Participant selection bias does not inflate contact-prejudice effect sizes.
• Prior contact research reviews each covered fewer than 60 studies.
• Proximity to outgroup members does not constitute actual intergroup contact.
• Publication bias can be detected through sample-size and effect-size correlations.
• Random effects meta-analysis suits heterogeneous literatures with ill-specified treatments
• Randomized contact experiments yield near-large prejudice reduction effects.
• Stronger contact effects in rigorous studies would confirm the contact-prejudice link.
• Structured contact programs yield consistent and stronger prejudice reduction
• Subjective literature reviews suffer selection biases that meta-analysis avoids.
• The contact-prejudice effect may be partly an artifact of publication bias.
• The contact-prejudice effect varies across samples by design and context
• The fail-safe index underestimates publication bias by assuming missing studies have no effect.
• The intergroup contact-prejudice link survives file-drawer checks, indicating limited publication bias.
• The trim-and-fill adjustment increases the contact-prejudice effect estimate, supporting its robustness.
• Theorists now seek what is necessary, not just helpful, for contact success
• Trim-and-fill and funnel graph methods tend to overestimate publication bias.
• Younger participants show greater prejudice change from contact than adults