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Testing a contact intervention based on intergroup friendship between Roma and non‐Roma Hungarians: reducing bias through institutional support in a non‐supportive societal context
Author(s) -
Kende Anna,
Tropp Linda,
Lantos Nóra Anna
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/jasp.12422
Subject(s) - friendship , psychology , prejudice (legal term) , contact hypothesis , psychological intervention , social psychology , context (archaeology) , intervention (counseling) , test (biology) , contact theory , paleontology , structural engineering , psychiatry , engineering , biology
Although intergroup friendships have been shown to reduce prejudice, little research has considered whether interventions fostering intergroup friendship would be effective in highly prejudicial contexts. We conducted a quasi‐experiment ( N = 61) to test whether a contact‐based intervention based on intergroup friendship could reduce bias against Roma people among non‐Roma Hungarians. Participants in the contact condition engaged in a face‐to‐face interaction with a Roma person, and responded to questions involving mutual self‐disclosure. Through pre‐ and post‐test questionnaires, we observed significant positive change in attitudes and contact intentions among participants in the contact condition, while these effects were not observed among participants in the control condition. Positive change was moderated by perceived institutional norms, which corroborates the potential of contact‐based interventions.