Mutual Intergroup Differentiation Model

Background of the Model

The contact hypothesis has generated an extensive body of research over the past 50 years that has, by and large, demonstrated that high-quality contact between members of different groups can reduce intergroup prejudice. The contact hypothesis has, however, a notable limitation: It fails to specify how the effects of contact would generalize beyond the immediate contact situation to other situations and from the individuals involved in the contact to the entire outgroup. Accordingly, research has shown that although participants who engage in cooperative contact with outgroup members develop more positive attitudes toward the specific outgroup members involved in the contact, their attitudes toward other outgroup members and the outgroup in general often remain unchanged.

To identify how and when the positive effects of contact are likely to generalize from individuals involved in the contact to the entire outgroup, researchers have drawn on social identity theory. According to this theory, when an individual's membership in a given group becomes salient, this membership becomes incorporated into the individual's selfconcept, resulting in a social identity rather than an individual identity. We are motivated to hold a positive social identity, so when our group membership is salient, we have a tendency to show a preference for groups we belong to over groups we do not belong to; in other words, we show ingroup bias. The social identity approach has led to the emergence of three diverging perspectives with regard to when the positive aspects of the contact situation result in more positive attitudes toward the outgroup in general.

Given that we tend to show intergroup bias when our group membership is salient, the decategorization approach proposes that intergroup contact is most likely to reduce prejudice when those involved focus on one another's individual characteristics rather than their respective group memberships. It is acknowledged that, in the short term, information acquired about individual category members is not directly generalized to the entire outgroup. However, the longterm effect of such interactions is a decrease in category-based processing in general and therefore reduced intergroup prejudice.

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