The intra-individual power of contact: Investigating when, how and why intergroup contact and intergroup outcomes fluctuate together

Abstract

Intergroup contact research has rarely considered the intra-individual (within-person) variability of contact. Using a three-wave longitudinal dataset (N = 565), this research aimed to (a) test the within-person simultaneous associations between positive and negative contacts and several intergroup outcomes (i.e. attitudes, prejudice, perceived variability, anxiety, empathy and deprovincialization), while controlling for between-person associations; (b) understand whether and how within-person simultaneous associations are mediated by empathy, anxiety and deprovincialization, and moderated by between-person contact and social dominance orientation (SDO). We found that within- and between-person variations in positive and negative contacts were associated with all intergroup outcomes, except intergroup anxiety for within-person contact. These associations were mainly mediated by the same processes (i.e., empathy and deprovincialization); the associations of within-person variations in contact with intergroup outcomes were largely independent of between-person contact and SDO. Intra-individual contact fluctuations matter for simultaneous prejudice reduction, suggesting the importance of frequent positive contact.