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

Abstract

AbstractIntergroup 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.