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Obstacles to Intergroup Contact 1 British Journal of Social Psychology (2013) © 2013 The British Psychological Society www.wileyonlinelibrary.com Brief report Obstacles to intergroup contact: When outgroup partner’s anxiety meets perceived ethnic discrimination Luca Andrighetto1*, Federica Durante2, Federica Lugani2, Chiara Volpato2 and Alberto Mirisola3 1University of Genova, Italy 2University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy 3Italian National Research Council, Institute for Educational Technology, Palermo, Italy Emerging research suggests that outgroup partner’s anxiety can disrupt intergroup rapport-building. This study extends previous findings by investigating the interactive effects of anticipated outgroup partner’s anxiety and perceived ethnic discrimination on self-anxiety and intergroup contact avoidance. A sample of immigrant adolescents belonging to different ethnic minorities in Italy (N = 118) was considered. Results showed that when participants expected to interact with an anxious outgroup (Italian) versus in-group partner, self-anxiety increased and, as a consequence, their intentions to avoid future encounters. However, these effects were observed only for participants with higher (vs. lower) perceptions of being discriminated against. The implications of these results for interethnic communication and misunderstandings are discussed. In the last few decades, most European countries have become host to an unprecedented number of immigrants (Stanley, 2008). Consequently, the opportunities for interethnic encounters have constantly increased. Unfortunately, more contact opportunities do not necessarily lead to more actual interethnic social interactions. Socio-psychological research has in fact shown, on the one hand, how interethnic interactions elicit high levels of self-anxiety, which increase people’s intentions to avoid the contact (e.g., Plant & Devine,2003;Stephan&Stephan,1985,2000);ontheotherhand,hownegativeintergroup expectations, sometimes due to previous experiences of ethnic discrimination, system- atically prevent the formation of new intergroup relations (e.g., Mallett, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2008; Shelton & Richeson, 2005). Finally, recent studies reveal that partner’s anxiety is just as important as self-anxiety in decreasing interest in future interethnic interactions (West, Shelton, & Trail, 2009). By bridging and extending these fields of research, we consider a *Correspondence should be addressed to Luca Andrighetto, Universita di Genova, DISFOR, Corso Podesta 2, Genova 16128, Italy (e-mail: [email protected]). DOI:10.1111/bjso.12039 2 Luca Andrighetto et al. pre-interaction situation, and examine experimentally the combined effects of per- ceived ethnic discrimination and anticipated partner’s anxiety on intergroup contact avoidance, testing furthermore the role of self-anxiety as the psychological mechanism underlying the relationship between anticipated partner’s anxiety and contact avoidance. More specifically, we hypothesize that perceiving ethnic discrimination (Johnson & Lecci, 2003; Mendoza-Denton, Downey, Purdie, Davis, & Pietrzak, 2002; Pinel, 1999) would interact with anticipated partner’s anxiety in increasing self-anxiety and, as a consequence, in decreasing people’s desire to engage in future interethnic interactions. To this aim, we focus on ethnic minorities because concerns about encountering discrimination are especially present in their lives (e.g., Mendoza-Denton et al., 2002; Swim, Hyers, Cohen, Fitzgerald, & Bylsma, 2003); therefore considering their perspective seems particularly relevant (see, e.g., Graham, 1992; Swim & Stangor, 1998). Intergroup anxiety and perceived ethnic discrimination Intergroup anxiety involves feelings of uneasiness and tension when anticipating or actually interacting with outgroup members (Stephan & Stephan, 1985). Traditionally, different factors have been associated with increased intergroup anxiety, such as a lack of previous contact, differential status, and negative outgroup stereotypes (see Stephan & Stephan, 1985, 2000). Recently, scholars have placed an emphasis on the relational nature of intergroup anxiety, and how the partner’s anxiety shapes the interaction’s development (see West & Dovidio, 2012). For instance, Dovidio, West, Pearson, Gaertner, and Kawakami (2007) found that both Whites and African Americans interpret outgroup members’ anxious behaviours (e.g., inconsistent gaze) as unfriendly, while they interpret in-group members’ anxious behaviours as mere anxiety. In addition, West et al. (2009) conducted a diary study involving college roommates, and found that the roommate’s anxiety was an important predictor of self-anxiety over time for both White and African American students in mixed-ethnic (but not in same-ethnic) dyads. Similarly, Pearson et al.’s (2008) work revealed that the perceived partner’s anxiety predicted the quality of the contact in interethnic (but not in same-ethnic) relations. The aforementioned outcomes could be further exacerbated by individuals’ percep- tions of discrimination. Perceived and existing intergroup prejudice leads ethnic minority members to be particularly afraid of being the target of discrimination, with obvious consequences on intergroup contact. A growing body of research reveals that concerns about encountering prejudice negatively influence emotional and behavioural responses during interethnic interactions (Shelton, Richeson, & Salvatore, 2005), and undermine the benefits of intergroup contact (Tropp, 2007). Furthermore, a number of studies indicated that expectations of being treated with prejudice negatively predict the intentions to engage in future contact (Doerr, Plant, Kunstman, & Buck, 2011; Mendoza-Denton et al., 2002), and that prior negative experiences of discrimination, even with just one outgroup member, enhance the minority members’ feelings of anxiety and lead them to want to avoid intergroup contact (Tropp, 2003). This research aims to extendand integrate previous works in two ways: (1) byexamining how, within a pre-interaction situation, anticipating that an unknown outgroup partner is anxious may affect the intentions to avoid future contact; (2) by shedding new light on the psychological mechanism underlying such effects. As said, partner’s anxiety has proven an important predictor of self-anxiety (West et al., 2009), and self-anxiety increases people’s intentions to avoid the contact (e.g., Plant & Devine, 2003; Tropp, 2003). Therefore, we Partner’s anxiety and perceived ethnic discrimination 3 hypothesize that expecting to interact with an anxious majority partner would increase minority members’ anxiety and, in turn, their desire to disengage from the contact even before it begins. However, we expect these effects to be stronger for individuals with higher perceptions of discrimination. As suggested by West et al. (2009), in an interethnic context people may more readily attribute manifestations of partner’s anxiety to prejudice and discomfort for the interaction. Although such a misattribution might occur for both majority and minority members, it is plausible to suppose that this is especially true for the latter, because they are particularly concerned of being discriminated (Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999; Mendoza-Denton et al., 2002). Discrimination is a psychological stressor (Contrada et al., 2000), and ethnic minority members with higher perceptions of discrimination hold accentuated anxious expectations that future ethnic-based discrimina- tion will occur (Feldman Barrett & Swim, 1998). In coherence with motivational theory of emotion (Lang, 1995), such anxious expectations lower the threshold for perceiving discrimination and prepare such minority members to react more intensely, both affectively and behaviourally. Thus, we argue that in a pre-interaction situation with potential cues of prejudice (i.e., partner’s anxiety) minority members with higher (vs. lower) perceptions of being discriminated against would react more intensively, namely, they would feel more anxiety. In other words, we predict that the mediational effect of self-anxiety would be moderated by individual differences in perceptions of discrimination. Crucially, in line with previous works (Pearson et al., 2008; West et al., 2009), we expect these effects to occur only when the partner is an outgroup (vs. in-group) member. Method Preliminary study A preliminary study was carried out to establish the link between anticipated partner’s anxiety and minorities’ attributions of prejudice in the Italian context. The study involved 20 Albanians (i.e., the ethnic minority group) and 24 Italian high school students. Participants were presented with a scenario in which they were asked to imagine a future interaction with an outgroup partner who displayed anxiety and nervousness for the upcoming encounter. Afterwards, participants undertook an open-ended questioning session to explain why their partner was anxious. Five ruled lines were provided for responses. Next, three independent judges (blind to the study’s purpose) were asked to rate the extent to which each response indicated that the partner’s anxiety was interpreted by participants as prejudice on a 5-point scale, from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). As expected, Albanians’ responses (M=4.10) were judged as more related to prejudice issues than were Italians’ responses (M = 3.50), t(59) = 2.90, p = .005, d=0.81. These results suggest that minority group members interpreted the outgroup member’s anxiety as a sign of prejudice against them (e.g., He/she does
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