Perspective-Taking and Willingness to Engage in Intergroup Contact

The current research explored whether perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with stereotyped outgroup members. Across three studies, we find that perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with negatively-stereotyped targets. In Study 1, perspective-takers sat closer to, whereas stereotype suppressors sat further from, a hooligan compared to control participants. In Study 2, individual differences in perspective-taking tendencies predicted individuals’ willingness to engage in contact with a hooligan, having effects above and beyond those of empathic concern. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that perspective-taking’s effects on intergroup contact extend to the target’s group (i.e., another homeless man), but not to other outgroups (i.e., a man of African descent). Consistent with other perspectivetaking research, our findings show that perspective-taking facilitates the creation of social bonds by increasing contact with stereotyped outgroup members. Citation: Wang CS, Tai K, Ku G, Galinsky AD (2014) Perspective-Taking Increases Willingness to Engage in Intergroup Contact. PLoS ONE 9(1): e85681. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0085681 Editor: Cosimo Urgesi, University of Udine, Italy Received June 11, 2013; Accepted December 5, 2013; Published January 22, 2014 Copyright: 2014 Wang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The authors have no support or funding to report. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: [email protected]