Past research has found intergroup contact to be a promising intervention to reduce prejudice and has identified adolescence as the developmental period during which intergroup contact is most effective. Few studies, however, have tested whether contact-based interventions can be scaled up to improve intergroup relations at a large scale. The present research evaluated whether and when the National Citizen Service, a large-scale contact-based intervention reaching one in six 15- to 17-year-olds in England and Northern Ireland, builds social cohesion among adolescents from different ethnic backgrounds. In a diverse sample of adolescents (N = 2099; M_age = 16.37, age range: 15-17 years; 58% female), this study used a pretest-posttest design with a double pretest to assess the intervention's effectiveness. Controlling for test-retest effects, this study found evidence that the intervention decreased intergroup anxiety and increased outgroup perspective-taking-but not that it affected intergroup attitudes, intergroup trust, or perceptions of relative (dis-)advantage. These (small) effects were greater for adolescents who had experienced less positive contact before participating and who talked more about group differences while participating. These findings suggest that the intervention might not immediately improve intergroup relations-but that it has the potential to prepare adolescents, especially those with less positive contact experiences before the intervention, for more positive intergroup interactions in the future.

We examined how people construct their social identities from multiple group memberships—and whether intergroup contact can reduce prejudice by fostering more inclusive social identities. South Indian participants ( N = 351) from diverse caste backgrounds viewed 24 identity cards, each representing a person with whom participants shared none, one, two, or all of three group memberships (caste, religion, nationality). Participants judged each person as “us” or “not us,” showing whom they included in their ingroup, and whom they excluded. Participants tended to exclude caste and religious minorities, replicating persistent social divides. Bridging these divides, cross-group friendship was associated with more inclusive identities which, in turn, were associated with more positive relations between an advantaged, an intermediate, and a disadvantaged caste group. Negative contact was associated with less inclusive identities. Contact and identity processes, however, did not affect entrenched opposition to (or undermine support for) affirmative action in advantaged and disadvantaged groups.

Based on two cross-sectional probability samples (Study 1: N = 1,382, Study 2: N = 1,587), we studied the interplay between positive and negative intergroup contact, different types of intergroup emotions (i.e., episodic intergroup emotions encountered during contact and more general chronic intergroup emotions), and outgroup behavior in the context of intergroup relations between non-immigrant Germans and foreigners living in Germany. In Study 1, we showed that positive and negative contact are related to specific episodic intergroup emotions (i.e., anger, fear and happiness). Results of Study 2 indicate an indirect effect of episodic intergroup emotions encountered during contact experiences on specific behavioral tendencies directed at outgroup members via more chronic situation-independent intergroup emotions. As expected, anger predicted approaching (discriminatory) behavioral tendencies (i.e., aggression) while fear predicted avoidance. The results extend the existing literature on intergroup contact and emotions by addressing positive and negative contact simultaneously and differentiating between situation-specific episodic and chronic intergroup emotions in predicting discriminatory behavioral tendencies.

Past research has shown that intergroup contact can be a promising intervention to improve intergroup relations and that contact-based interventions might be most effective during adolescence. In postconflict Northern Ireland, widespread residential segregation and a largely separate school system limit opportunities for intergroup contact between adolescents from the Catholic and Protestant communities. We evaluated whether a large-scale intervention to facilitate intergroup contact between students attending separate schools (the 'Shared Education' program) improves a range of outcomes relevant for intergroup relations in Northern Ireland. We conducted a 5-wave longitudinal, quasi-experimental study that followed a large sample of school students (N = 5,159, M_age = 12.4, age range: 10-14 years; 2,988 girls, 2,044 boys) from 56 predominantly Catholic or Protestant schools from sixth to tenth grade. We compared the developmental trajectories of students who, in 9th (14-15 years) and 10th (15-16 years) grade, shared some classes with students from the other community, as part of the program, to students who did not. We found that participating in shared classes had a medium-size, positive effect on the amount of intergroup contact students had outside of class, and small, positive effects on students' outgroup attitudes, outgroup trust, and intergroup empathy (but not on their intergroup anxiety, future contact intentions, deprovincialization, or multicultural beliefs). Our findings show that a school-based program of shared education can provide a viable and effective intervention to facilitate intergroup contact, improve intergroup relations, and foster social integration among adolescents at a large scale in a postconflict society. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).