The Impact Of Imagining Intergroup Contact On Implicit Prejudice

Intergroup relations are a long-term concern in the field of social psychology. Over the years, researchers have been focusing on the effective strategies to reduce intergroup prejudice and improve intergroup relations. Over the past 20 years, there has been an increasing awareness that much social cognition occurs outside of conscious awareness or conscious control. Thence researches of implicit prejudice have been under the spotlight. Imagining intergroup contact is a new paradigm of the intergroup contact theory. With the advantages of crossing time and space obstacle, it provides new ideas and new ways for the intergroup relations research. Numerous finding concluded that imagining intergroup contact can reduce implicit prejudice. This research chose college students and peasant-workers who had specific social attributes as the objects of study. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of imagining intergroup contact on implicit prejudice further.Study 1 used 3(active contact, negative contact and neutral contact)*3(imagined active contact, imagined negative contact and control group) between-subject design, implicit prejudice is the dependent variable. The purpose of this study is to explored the impact of college students' imagining intergroup contact on peasant-workers' implicit prejudice by single factor design. The results showed that:(1) college students' imagining intergroup contact can effectively reduce peasant workers' implicit prejudice;(2) the college students' implicit prejudice from town had no difference from rural area for peasant-workers' implicit prejudice;(3)Contact experience had no effect on the relationship between imagining intergroup contact and implicit prejudice.Study 2 also used 3(active contact, negative contact and neutral contact)*3(imagined active contact, imagined negative contact and control group) between-subject design, implicit prejudice is the dependent variable. The purpose of this study is to explored the impact of peasant-workers' imagining intergroup contact on college students' implicit prejudice. The results showed that:(1) peasant-workers' imagining intergroup contact can effectively reduce college students' implicit prejudice;(2) there were differences between peasant-workers with a higher degree and peasant-workers with a lower degree;(3) there were no significant differences between age stage and implicit prejudice;(4) Contact experience and imagining intergroup contact play a role on the implicit prejudice.This study suggests that imagining intergroup contact can effectively reduce implicit prejudice and improve intergroup relations. It provides a new perspective for intergroup relations, and it promotes the implicit social cognition and intergroup relations research.