What's past is prologue: Intergroup emotions and trust as mediating the links between prior intergroup contact and future behavioral tendencies

Building on and extending prior research demonstrating the role of both quality and quantity of intergroup contact in reducing negative attitudes toward outgroup members (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), the present study takes the novel approach of applying both contact theory and Intergroup Emotions Theory (IET; Mackie & Smith, 2002) to the study of prejudice reduction as a function of intergroup contact. We examined the mediating role of both intergroup emotions and trust in predicting both positive and negative behavioral tendencies toward the outgroup. In a study of intergroup contact between Catholics and Protestant students in Northern Ireland, outgroup contact (measured by the product of quality and quantity of contact) was directly associated with outgroup trust, outgroup emotions (increases in positive emotion and decreases in negative emotions), and outgroup behavioral tendencies (increases in positive behavioral tendencies and decreases in negative behavioral tendencies). Additionally, the relationship between contact and outgroup behavioral tendencies was mediated by general outgroup trust as well as by positive and negative outgroup emotions.