“Let's Make the Difference!” Promoting Hate Counter-Speech in Adolescence Through Empathy and Digital Intergroup Contact

Intergroup contact interventions have been mostly used to foster empathy, promote positive relations, and reduce prejudice and discrimination. However, less is known about the potential of intergroup contact, especially digital, in interventions designed to hinder hate speech and promote counter-speech. Counter-speech can be defined as a direct response to hate speech, aimed at refuting or undermining it. This study argues that the quality of intergroup contact may foster counter-speech responses through empathy for hate speech victims. For this purpose, an ad hoc conversational storytelling web-app module, named “Let's Make the Difference!”, was developed and administered to a sample of 433 Italian adolescents (278 in the experimental group and 155 in the control group, M_age = 14.33). Through the web-app, adolescents engaged in a chat with an outgroup avatar, inducing digital intergroup contact. Results show a significant increase in counter-speech intentions between the pre-test and post-test in the experimental condition, unlike in the control group. Moreover, in line with our hypotheses, the quality of contact induced with the conversational agent increased empathy toward the victim, which in turn increased the intention to counter hate speech in the intervention group. In light of these results on digital contact, both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.