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What is Intergroup Contact Hypothesis?

The idea that contact between members of different groups reduces prejudice, especially when it is cooperative, between equals, and supported by authorities. It is one of the best-supported ideas in social psychology, with important limits.

From the PsychologyOrbit knowledge base, last updated 2 November 2026.

Knowledge base Updated 2 November 2026 1 views

Intergroup Contact Hypothesis

The idea that contact between members of different groups reduces prejudice, especially when it is cooperative, between equals, and supported by authorities. It is one of the best-supported ideas in social psychology, with important limits.

Definition

Gordon Allport proposed that contact reduces prejudice under four conditions:

  • Equal status within the situation.
  • Common goals.
  • Intergroup cooperation rather than competition.
  • Support from authorities, law or custom.

Later work added indirect contact: knowing that a friend has an out-group friend (extended contact), or even imagining positive contact, can also reduce prejudice.

History

Allport set out the hypothesis in The Nature of Prejudice in 1954, the same year the US Supreme Court ended legal school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, drawing on earlier studies of desegregated housing and military units.

Pettigrew later reframed it as a theory and added the importance of friendship across groups.

Theory

Contact reduces prejudice mainly by reducing intergroup anxiety and increasing empathy, and to a lesser degree by increasing knowledge about the other group.

Effects generalise better when group membership stays noticeable during contact, so that positive feelings attach to the group and not just to one person.

Research

Pettigrew and Tropp's 2006 meta-analysis of over 500 studies found that contact was associated with lower prejudice across many kinds of groups, with a moderate average effect, and that Allport's conditions strengthened the effect but were not strictly required.

A 2019 re-evaluation by Paluck, Green and Green focused on randomised studies with delayed follow-up and found effects that were positive but smaller and more variable, weaker for racial and ethnic prejudice, and based on few studies with adults.

Negative contact experiences can increase prejudice, and may be more influential than positive ones per encounter.

Applications

Integrated schooling and housing, cooperative learning methods such as the jigsaw classroom, cross-community programmes in divided societies, and mixed teams at work.

Criticism

  • Self-selection. Less prejudiced people seek contact, inflating correlations.
  • Few rigorous long-term trials with adults.
  • It can reduce the disadvantaged group's motivation to challenge inequality, by fostering a sense that relations are good while structures stay unequal.
  • Negative contact is common and can make things worse.

References

  • Allport, G. W. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Addison-Wesley.
  • Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751-783.
  • Paluck, E. L., Green, S. A., & Green, D. P. (2019). The contact hypothesis re-evaluated. Behavioural Public Policy, 3(2), 129-158.
  • Barlow, F. K., et al. (2012). The contact caveat: Negative contact predicts increased prejudice more than positive contact predicts reduced prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(12), 1629-1643.
Written for PsychologyOrbit and reviewed before publishing. It is a summary for professionals and students, not clinical guidance, and it is not a substitute for the primary sources listed above.