This study investigated the impact of participation in the Seeds of Peace International Summer Camp program on attitudes toward perceived enemies and in-group members. Specifically, individuals’ social dominance orientation, stereotype attributions, closeness to own and out-group members, attitudes about peace, beliefs about ability to think independently and ideas about how to facilitate peace were examined. Three groups of adolescents were studied: Israeli, Palestinian and Non-Palestinian Arab campers who came from Jordan and Egypt. Two hundred and forty eight adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17 participated in Study 1, and a 62 participant sub-sample of the original group participated in the follow up study. The two studies together revealed several important findings. The results from Study 1 suggest that the experience of participating in the Seeds of Peace camp program is effective for fostering feelings of closeness to the out-group, and for evaluating the other side’s attitudes toward peacemaking more positively. Results also suggested that cognitively-oriented ratings, such as stereotypes of warmth and competence, were more resistant to change. The results of the follow up study conducted ten months after camp had ended were mixed. Generally, out-group evaluations became less positive, although there was some maintenance of effects. The present research supports previous findings that the use of coexistence programs as a means to improve intergroup relations is generally beneficial in the short term. The results also highlighted the importance of the experience of participating in the Seeds of Peace camp program to changing the beliefs held about perceived enemies. The significant contributions of the current research include underlining the importance of intergroup contact, the experience of living with perceived enemies, and becoming ready to listen to the other side, in order to change beliefs held about them.

This study investigated the impact of participation in the Seeds of Peace International Summer Camp program on attitudes toward perceived enemies and in-group members. Specifically, individuals’ social dominance orientation, stereotype attributions, closeness to own and out-group members, attitudes about peace, beliefs about ability to think independently and ideas about how to facilitate peace were examined. Three groups of adolescents were studied: Israeli, Palestinian and Non-Palestinian Arab campers who came from Jordan and Egypt. Two hundred and forty eight adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17 participated in Study 1, and a 62 participant sub-sample of the original group participated in the follow up study. The two studies together revealed several important findings. The results from Study 1 suggest that the experience of participating in the Seeds of Peace camp program is effective for fostering feelings of closeness to the out-group, and for evaluating the other side’s attitudes toward peacemaking more positively. Results also suggested that cognitively-oriented ratings, such as stereotypes of warmth and competence, were more resistant to change. The results of the follow up study conducted ten months after camp had ended were mixed. Generally, out-group evaluations became less positive, although there was some maintenance of effects. The present research supports previous findings that the use of coexistence programs as a means to improve intergroup relations is generally beneficial in the short term. The results also highlighted the importance of the experience of participating in the Seeds of Peace camp program to changing the beliefs held about perceived enemies. The significant contributions of the current research include underlining the importance of intergroup contact, the experience of living with perceived enemies, and becoming ready to listen to the other side, in order to change beliefs held about them.

The purpose of this study was to examine the daily exchanges between Hispanic students of Mexican descent and European American teachers in urban schools and how these exchanges can result in a sense of frustration and powerlessness by Hispanic students affecting their academic success. The day-to-day interactions between teacher and student may be a result of intergroup conflict. As this was an exploratory study to examine the daily exchanges between Hispanic students of Mexican descent and their European American teachers, a qualitative case study methodology was used to collect and report the data for the study. This case study approach was helpful in examining the students? perceptions of intergroup conflict and how these cultural differences affected their exchanges. The data were collected through interviews and through observations made while visiting the urban high schools where the participants of the research study once attended. The study took place in a metropolitan city in South Central Texas. Included in this study were five male and five female Hispanic students of Mexican descent who were in their first or second year of college and who participated in two focus groups to validate their responses. The intergroup properties that were identified in this study were areas of conflict between the students and their European American teachers that affected their classroom relationships and their academic success. The properties of intergroup conflict were used to identify causes of conflict between the students and their European American teachers. The properties of intergroup conflict areas revealed in the study were (a) incompatible goals, (b) competitions for resources, (c) cultural and power differences, and (d) group boundaries. The quick increase in the Hispanic population has almost doubled the number of Hispanic students in public schools. The majority of these students are often clustered in urban schools. A disproportionate number of failing schools, across grade levels, serve predominately poor and minority students. Of equal importance is the statistic that 85% of teachers working in public schools in the United States are White. With the increase in students of color in schools, there is research showing that students are treated differently and that the cultural background of the student is often a reason for this differential treatment. As identified in the study and through the properties of intergroup conflict, cultural differences among various demographically diverse groups, such as the students and teachers studied here, lead to misperceptions that eventually lead to conflicts. Potential conflicts, due to teacher and student diversity and to opposing interests, occurred in the day-to-day exchanges in the classrooms.

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Dans le cadre de cette thèse, plus de 6000 élèves et 1500 membres d'équipes éducatives provenant de 50 écoles ont participé à des études visant à mieux comprendre la nature et les déterminants des phénomènes de violence en milieu scolaire. La thèse s'articule autour de quatre questions principales. Nous nous sommes d'abord interrogés sur la nature et l'ampleur des phénomènes de violence à l'école. Les résultats des enquêtes réalisées invitent à recadrer le problème. D'une part, l'image globale de l'école qui se dégage des réponses des élèves semble dominée par des aspects positifs. D'autre part, ce qui « fait violence » ne se compose pas principalement d'agressions physiques, mais plutôt de petits incidents considérés comme un manque de respect, de désengagement et d'ennui, de tensions relationnelles entre élèves, entre membres des équipes éducatives, entre enseignants et élèves, etc. Nous nous sommes ensuite posés la question du poids respectif de différentes variables dans les phénomènes qui font violence à l'école. Les résultats obtenus indiquent une faible influence des caractéristiques socio-démographiques et scolaires des élèves sur les différents phénomènes étudiés, sauf au niveau des différences entre établissements, où la concentration au sein de certains établissements d'un public relégué par le système scolaire agit comme un facteur de risque. Mais quel que soit le niveau d'analyse, les résultats suggèrent une influence appréciable des perceptions qu'ont les élèves des pratiques d'enseignements auxquelles ils sont confrontés, des perceptions qu'ils ont de la qualité des relations proposées par les enseignants, et de leur sentiment d'appartenance à leur école. Puis, nous nous sommes demandés sur quoi se fondent ces perceptions des élèves. Les résultats présentés indiquent que celles-ci sont relativement indépendantes des caractéristiques socio-démographiques et scolaires et ne sont pas le simple reflet des différences individuelles entre élèves. Ces perceptions semblent partiellement partagées par les élèves d'une même classe, montrent une convergence certaine avec les perceptions des enseignants et ont des effets parallèles à des manipulations expérimentales correspondant aux pratiques auxquelles elles se réfèrent. Au total, les perceptions qu'ont les élèves de leur environnement scolaire semblent bien refléter des variations contextuelles. Enfin, nous nous sommes interrogés sur l'étendue ou la transversalité des effets de ces perceptions du contexte scolaire. Les résultats laissent penser que ces perceptions ont des effets cohérents sur une large gamme de phénomènes (motivation, relations intergroupes, transgression, agression, etc.). Ces résultats suggèrent qu'un même paramètre du contexte peut avoir des effets sur plusieurs dimensions de la vie d'une personne. Les résultats indiquent en outre que les perceptions relatives aux aspects pédagogiques sont fortement associées à celles relatives aux aspects relationnels, ce qui suggère que les effets sont surtout dus à des configurations de facteurs plutôt qu'à des facteurs isolés. Etant donné leur caractère transversal, il est possible que tous ces effets soient sous-tendus par des processus communs, comme par exemple ceux proposés par la théorie de l'auto-régulation. Les implications pratiques de ces résultats sont détaillées au niveau des pratiques mises en œuvre par les équipes éducatives, au niveau de la gestion des établissements et au niveau de la régulation de l'institution scolaire.

Members of groups in conflict are often defensive of ingroup-perpetrated violence, especially if they glorify their ingroup. While past literature has established that high glorifiers are unconditionally defensive of their ingroup, findings regarding low glorifiers are mixed, with some studies finding low glorifiers to be similarly defensive as high glorifiers and others finding low glorifiers to not be defensive or even critical of the ingroup. Across six studies, I investigated whether perceiving a conflict to be tangible (rather than intangible) drives defensiveness among low glorifiers. I tested this hypothesis across two national contexts that were naturally closer (Israel) or farther (the U.S.) from the same conflict (the Syrian conflict). I found that Israeli low glorifiers were defensive of their ingroup, whereas American low glorifiers were not (Studies 1a/1b) and that Israelis found the conflict tangible, whereas Americans found the conflict relatively intangible (Studies 2a/2b). Across Study 3 and Study 4, I found experimental evidence that low glorifiers in Serbia (study 3) and the U.S. (study 4) are more defensive of ingroup-perpetrated violence when the conflict context is tangible than when it is relatively intangible.

This thesis examines and compares the effectiveness of direct and indirect types of contact in leading to short- or longer-term prejudice-reducing outcomes in Cyprus. Chapter 1 provides a background to the relations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and Chapter 2 provides a theoretical introduction to the intergroup contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) and to extended friendships (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp, 1997), vicarious contact (Mazziotta, Mummendey, & Wright, 2011), and imagined contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) which have been suggested to be alternatives and a stepping stone to direct contact when the latter is absent. Chapter 3 consists of three experiments assessing the relative effects of direct and vicarious contact (Experiments 1 and 2) and imagined contact (Experiment 3). The results show that direct, and to a weaker extent, vicarious contact lead to more positive outgroup attitudes, but that a week after contact this effect is lost. All types of contact yield less anxiety, an effect that endures in time, and direct and imagined contact yield more positive action tendencies, an effect that remains significant in time only for direct contact. Chapter 4 consists of two experiments further exploring the capacity of imagined contact to yield positive intergroup outcomes. Experiment 4 tests whether the induction of interpersonal and intergroup similarities and/or differences into a positive imagined contact scenario affects participants evaluation of the outgroup. The results show, in line with the Optimal Distinctiveness Theory (Brewer, 1971), that ‘balanced similarity’ which incorporates both similarities and differences yields more positive outgroup attitudes than the conditions focusing only on similarities or only on differences. Experiment 5 compares ‘balanced similarity’ with positive imagined contact and finds that only the former affects variables related to preparing individuals for future contact. Chapter 5 consists of a three-wave longitudinal study examining the temporal effects of direct and extended friendships on outgroup attitudes and their mediation. Both types of friendships yield a significant indirect effect on attitudes which is stronger for direct friendships and is mediated by intergroup anxiety for both types of friendships and also by ingroup norms for direct friendships. Chapter 6 presents and discusses the key findings, outlines the limitations of these studies, and suggests avenues for future research.

The relationship between Black Americans and African immigrants can be described in many ways, and one of those descriptions is distant. Due to a number of reasons, relationships between the two ethnic groups sometimes result in dissociation. In understanding the dissociation between Black Americans and African immigrants, this study takes a look at cultural identity, ethnic identity, avowal and ascription, and how they connect to the issue of dissociation between the two ethnic groups. This study uses social identity theory and mediated intergroup conflict as its theoretical foundation. Narrative approach and grounded theory approach are used as the study’s methodological approaches, and the study also analyzes its findings using three phases of data analysis; memo-writing analysis, narrative analysis, and hermeneutic analysis. Only a few studies concerning the dissociation between Black Americans and African immigrants have been conducted, and it is this study’s objective to add to the current literature. It is important to note that this study is an exploratory research on the dissociation between the two ethnic groups. Overall, the study’s findings indicate that the dissociation between Black Americans and African immigrants is due to the cultural differences between the two ethnic groups and how those differences are communicated.

This thesis studied the nature and consequences of close intergroup contact in Nigeria. Chapter 1 provides a background to intergroup relations between the ethno-religious groups in Nigeria. Chapter 2 provides an introduction to the theoretical framework, which is the intergroup contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954), with special emphasis on the role of friendship in intergroup contact research. The chapter addresses the possibility that negative intergroup contact exacerbates prejudice and outlines the role of indirect forms of intergroup contact, namely extended contact (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp, 1997), vicarious contact (Mazziotta, Mummendey, & Wright, 2011), and imagined contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) in prejudice reduction. Indirect forms of contact have been suggested as alternatives to direct contact, if no or only limited direct contact opportunities are available. All empirical studies in this thesis were conducted in south-west Nigeria with respondents who belong to the Yoruba majority group. The target groups were Hausas, Edos, and Igbos (minority groups in the area). Chapter 3 consists of two repeated measure studies (Studies 1 and 2) which compare the quality of in-group (Yoruba and Yoruba) and cross-group (Yoruba and Igbo) friendships. The findings showed that, provided the duration of friendship is controlled for, cross-group friendships are rated as largely similar in quality and closeness to in-group friendships, fulfilling key functions of friendship. Chapter 4 consists of two cross-sectional studies (Studies 3 and 4) which tested the secondary transfer effects from direct and extended cross-group friendships. The findings showed that direct and extended cross-group friendship with Igbos was associated with more favourable attitudes towards Hausas. The studies showed for the first time that extended cross-group friendship yields secondary transfer effects. Chapter 5 focuses on the effects of positive and negative intergroup contact with Igbos on out-group attitudes (Study 5). It was shown that negative intergroup contact had an effect on attitudes over and above the effect of positive contact. As expected, positive contact with Igbos was associated with more favourable attitudes towards Igbos, and negative contact with Igbos was associated with less favourable attitudes towards Igbos. Additionally, Study 5 showed secondary transfer effects of negative intergroup contact. Chapter 6 contains a multilevel-study (Study 6) which explores the effects of roommate diversity (i.e., having at least one Igbo roommate) on out-group attitudes. Roommate diversity was linked to more positive attitudes towards Igbos, the roommate’s ethnic group. Moreover, it was shown that contact with Igbos was associated with more positive attitudes towards Edos and Hausas on the within-level. On the between-level roommate diversity was associated with more positive attitudes towards Egos. Chapter 7 summarizes the key findings of the studies and discusses theoretical and practical implications of the research.

The objective of this thesis was to examine the effectiveness of contact and imagined contact (a derivative of direct contact) in reducing intergroup prejudice when the prejudice in question is deemed socially acceptable. Studies focused on two populations that are targets of socially acceptable, prejudice – people suffering from schizophrenia in the U.K., and homosexual men in Jamaica. These target groups were selected because they are similar in that they are both targets of socially acceptable prejudice, but also because of their differences in that the stereotypes associated with them are quite dissimilar. The first part of the thesis empirically tested the assumption that the aforementioned populations are targets of socially acceptable prejudice. Two cross-sectional studies, one of which was also cross-cultural, measured motivation to control prejudice against these target groups, and compared it to motivation to control prejudice against targets of socially unacceptable prejudice. I found that motivation to control prejudice against people with schizophrenia in the U.K. was lower than motivation to control prejudice against Black people in the U.K. Also, motivation to control prejudice against homosexual men was higher in the U.K. and the U.S.A. than in Jamaica, and differences in motivation to control unspecified prejudice were significantly smaller. The second part examined the association between actual contact and prejudice for both populations. Two cross-sectional studies, one of which was also cross-cultural, found that contact was associated with less prejudice. This effect was mediated by intergroup anxiety in all cases, and also by fear in the case of people with schizophrenia. Furthermore, I found that contact was more strongly negatively associated with anti-homosexual prejudice in Jamaica, where the prejudice is socially acceptable, than it was in Britain, where the prejudice is not socially acceptable. The third part tested the effect of imagined contact, a form of extended contact, on prejudice against people with schizophrenia. Four experimental studies demonstrated that imagined contact can be an effective means of reducing prejudice against this group. However imagined contact must be conducted in very specific ways, otherwise it has the potential to increase prejudice against people with schizophrenia.