A school desegregates its classrooms but keeps separate competitive grading curves for the two groups. Applying Allport's contact hypothesis, what outcome would you predict?
APrejudice will decrease because students are now sharing physical space
BPrejudice may worsen because the competitive structure violates the cooperative interdependence condition
CPrejudice will decrease slowly because institutional support from the school administration is present
DPrejudice will decrease if students have enough time to develop personal acquaintances
Competitive interdependence is one of the key failure modes Allport identified. When groups compete for the same scarce resource (grades, jobs, status), contact reliably increases intergroup hostility rather than reducing it. The contact hypothesis does not say contact reduces prejudice — it specifies conditions under which contact reduces prejudice. Without cooperative interdependence (working toward shared goals requiring collaboration), contact can confirm and deepen existing stereotypes. Simply sharing a classroom while competing for grades is exactly the kind of contact that has historically failed or worsened intergroup relations.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
What is the 'generalization problem' in intergroup contact research?
AThe difficulty of generalizing Allport's findings from American samples to other cultures
BThe tendency for positive attitudes formed toward one out-group member to be subtyped as an exception, leaving the general group stereotype intact
CThe problem of researchers generalizing from lab studies to real-world policy contexts
DThe tendency of contact effects to generalize too broadly, reducing prejudice toward groups the person never encountered
The generalization problem is the central limitation of intergroup contact. When you develop a positive relationship with an individual out-group member, you may mentally place them in a special subcategory — 'one of the good ones' — while preserving your stereotype of the group as a whole. This subtyping allows contact to improve attitudes toward specific individuals without shifting general out-group attitudes. For contact to generalize, the individual must be perceived as representative of their group, which creates a tension: the more you treat someone as an individual (which helps reduce prejudice toward them specifically), the less they may seem typical of the group (which limits generalization).
Question 3 True / False
Simply increasing the amount of contact between members of different groups will reliably reduce prejudice.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
False — this is the most important practical insight of Allport's work. Contact without equal status, cooperative interdependence, institutional support, and opportunity for personal acquaintance often fails to reduce prejudice and can actively worsen intergroup attitudes by reinforcing existing hierarchies, increasing competition, or confirming negative stereotypes. Failed desegregation experiments in housing and schools that produced increased conflict illustrate this clearly. The four conditions are not optional enhancements; they are the mechanisms through which contact reduces prejudice. Allport's hypothesis is about conditional contact effects, not unconditional ones.
Question 4 True / False
Allport's 'equal status' condition requires that the two groups have equal social standing in society at large, not just within the specific contact situation.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
False. Allport specified equal status *within the contact situation* — both groups should have comparable roles and standing in the specific interaction. This is an important clarification because true societal equality is rarely achieved and cannot be a prerequisite for attempting prejudice reduction. What matters is that within the classroom, workplace, or community project, neither group is structurally subordinate to the other. Contact where one group is systematically in a serving or subordinate role to another tends to confirm hierarchical stereotypes even if general societal inequality exists.
Question 5 Short Answer
Why can contact with an individual out-group member improve attitudes toward that person without reducing general prejudice toward their group, and what does research suggest is needed to bridge this gap?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Contact improves attitudes toward individuals partly by revealing them as complex, three-dimensional people who contradict the group stereotype. But this can trigger subtyping — categorizing the person as an exception ('not like the others') rather than revising the group stereotype itself. For generalization to occur, the individual must be perceived as representative of the out-group, not as an atypical outlier. Research suggests that maintaining some sense of group membership (so the person is seen as a group member, not just an individual) while also allowing personal acquaintance promotes generalization. Extended contact effects also help: knowing that members of your own in-group have positive cross-group friendships shifts the perceived in-group norm toward accepting out-group members.
This tension between individuation (seeing someone as an individual reduces prejudice toward them) and typicality (being seen as typical of the group enables generalization) is a core challenge for prejudice-reduction interventions. It explains why well-designed programs like the jigsaw classroom — where cooperation is structured around complementary roles, making each group member's contribution visible and essential — work better than simply mixing students. The generalization problem also motivates extended contact and media representation as indirect routes to attitude change that may bypass the subtyping trap.