DIVERSITY AND PEACEMAKING LECTURE 11

Peacemaking Although certain psychological forces can breed destructive conflict, we can harness other forces to bring conflict to a positive end. What are these ingredients of peace and harmony?

Contact Does desegregation improve racial attitudes? The evidence is mixed.

Contact After reviewing all the available studies, Walter Stephan (1986) concluded that racial attitudes had been little affected by desegregation. Many student exchange programs have likewise had less-than-hoped – for effects on student attitudes toward their host countries.

Contact For example, when American students study in France, often living with other Americans as they do so, their stereotypes of the French tend not to improve (Strobe & others, 1988). Contact also failed to allay the loathing of Rwandan Tutsis by their Hutu neighbors.

Contact When does desegregation improve racial attitudes? Might the amount of interracial contact be a factor? Indeed it seems to be.

Contact Researchers have gone into dozens of desegregated schools and observed with whom children of a given race eat with, socialize with, and talk to.

Contact Race influences contact. Whites disproportionately associate with Whites, Blacks with Blacks (Schofield, 1986).

Contact In contrast, studies show that prolonged, personal contact between Whites and Blacks produce positive interracial attitudes.

Contact/Friendship Surveys of nearly 4,000 Europeans reveal that friendship is a key to successful contact. If you have a minority-group friend, you become much more likely to express sympathy and support for the friend ’ s group.

Contact/Friendship It ’ s true of West Germans ’ attitudes toward Turks, French attitudes toward Asians and North Africans, Netherlanders ’ attitudes toward Surinamers and Turks, and Britishers ’ attitudes toward West Indians and Asians (Brown & others, 1999, Pettigrew, 1997).

Equal Status Contact Studies have shown that equal status contact is more likely to improve attitudes than unequal status contact. For example, studies have shows that contact between neighbors, summer campers, soldiers improved racial attitudes (Pettigrew, 1988).

Cooperation Although equal-status contact can help, it is sometimes not enough. Competitive contact divides whereas cooperative contact can help unit and change attitudes.

Common external threats Friendliness is common among those who experience a shared threat. Have you ever been victimized by the weather, punished by a teacher?

Common external threats You may recall feeling close to those with whom you shared this predicament. Having a common enemy unified groups of competing boys in many experiments (Dion, 1979).

Superordinate goals Closely related to the unifying power of an external threat is the unifying power of superordinate goals, goals that compel all in a group and require cooperative effort.

Superordinate goals Dovidio and others (1999) report that working cooperatively has especially favorable effects under conditions that lead people to define a new, inclusive group that dissolves their former subgroups.

Superordinate goals To combat Germany, Italy, and Japan during World War II the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R., along with other nations, formed one united group named the Allies. So long as the superordinate goal of defeating a common enemy lasted, so did supportive U.S. attitudes toward the Russians.