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Does intergroup contact affect personality? A longitudinal study on the bidirectional relationship between intergroup contact and personality traits
Author(s) -
Vezzali Loris,
Turner Rhian,
Capozza Dora,
Trifiletti Elena
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2313
Subject(s) - agreeableness , openness to experience , psychology , personality , big five personality traits , social psychology , longitudinal study , hierarchical structure of the big five , developmental psychology , affect (linguistics) , clinical psychology , big five personality traits and culture , extraversion and introversion , statistics , mathematics , communication
We conducted a longitudinal study to test whether, in addition to being predicted by personality, intergroup contact is longitudinally associated with personality traits. Participants were 388 majority (Italian) and 109 minority (immigrant) first‐year high school students. Results revealed a bidirectional relationship between contact and personality: Quality of contact was longitudinally associated with greater agreeableness and openness to experience, whereas agreeableness and openness to experience were longitudinal predictors of contact quality. An unexpected negative longitudinal association also emerged between quantity of contact and agreeableness. These effects were not moderated by group of belonging (majority vs. minority). Our findings highlight the importance of integrating research on intergroup contact with research on personality.