Threat and Emotion: Using Target-specific Contact Processes to Explain Diverse Intergroup Behaviours

Alston, Lisa (2022) Threat and Emotion: Using Target-specific Contact Processes to Explain Diverse Intergroup Behaviours. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

To date, the research on intergroup contact has undoubtedly yielded important insights into the effects of positive and negative intergroup contact on prejudice attitudes. Unfortunately, using this generalized approach to understand the effects of contact on prejudice, we cannot identify the fine-grained emotional mechanisms responsible for the effects of contact on separate minority groups. Indeed, contact research rarely has considered how contact processes may unfold differently in different groups. Across six studies, this thesis investigates how the relationships between outgroup threat, positive and negative intergroup contact experiences, and specific intergroup emotions might explain why individuals vary their prejudicial behaviour according to their target. The first part of this thesis integrates five intergroup relation theories to form the novel threat-matching hypothesis, which predicts that the emotional processes underlying the effects of contact depend on the specific threat posed by the outgroup. Based on this hypothesis it was proposed that past experiences of positive contact with a target group would be associated with a reduction in the specific negative emotions that can motivate specific negative threat-coping behaviours. Negative contact, meanwhile, was expected to be associated with an increase in the specific negative emotions that might motivate the same negative intergroup behaviours. The second and empirical part of the thesis tested the threat-matching hypothesis. Results support the conclusion that past experiences of intergroup contact with a specific outgroup can predict discrete and functional intergroup emotions that in turn can predict specific intergroup behaviour tendencies. The present findings leave us optimistic that diversity training interventions with focus on intergroup emotions and behaviour tendency have the potential to bring about important social change.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	14 Mar 2023 09:28
Last Modified:	14 Mar 2023 09:28
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/91516
DOI:

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