REVISITING THE CONTACT HYPOTHESIS - THE INDUCTION OF A COMMON INGROUPIDENTITY

This paper reviews evidence pertaining to the Common Ingroup Identity Model for reducing intergroup bias. This model proposes that intergrou p bias and conflict can be reduced by factors that transform members c ognitive representations of the memberships from two groups to one mor e inclusive social entity. Theoretically, a common ingroup identity ex tends or redirects the cognitive and motivational processes that produ ce positive feelings toward ingroup members to former outgroup members . It is proposed that the prerequisite features specified by the conta ct Hypothesis (Allport, 1954; Cook, 1985), such as equal status betwee n the memberships, cooperative interdependence, opportunity for self-r evealing interactions and egalitarian norms, successfully reduce bias, in part, because they help transform members' perceptions of the memb erships from ''Us'' and ''Them'' to a more inclusive ''We''. Evidence from a laboratory experiment, two survey studies involving students at tending a multi-ethnic high school and executives who have experienced a corporate merger, and a field experiment involving fans attending a college football game are summarized. In general, across these divers e settings, greater perceptions of a superordinate identity predicted lower levels of intergroup bias toward original outgroup members. In p articular, this presentation of our research discusses the promise of exploring the role of a dial identity, in which both sub-group and sup erordinate group identities exist simultaneously, and how contextual f eatures of the situational context may moderate the relation between t he strength of a dual identity and intergroup attitudes. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.