We examined whether increasing individuals’ perceived variability of an out-group reduces prejudice and discrimination toward members of this group. In a series of four laboratory and field experiments, we attracted participants’ attention to the heterogeneity of members of an out-group (or not), and then measured their attitudes or behaviors. Perceived variability was manipulated by portraying...

Understanding intergroup prejudice is a dominant research focus for social psychology. Prejudice is usually conceptualised as a continuum of positive/negative affect; but this has limitations. It does not reflect people's ability to maintain simultaneous positive and negative stereotypes of others. Nor does it explain extreme prejudice (bigotry). Some researchers have proposed multidimensional ...

One view in the study of intergroup conflict is that pride implies prejudice. However, an increasing number of scholars have come to view in-group pride more benignly, suggesting that pride can be accompanied by a full range of feelings toward the out-group. In this paper, we focus on a substantively interesting case of ingroup/out-group attitudes – national pride and hostility towards immigran...

Why do essentialist beliefs promote prejudice? We proposed that essentialist beliefs increase prejudice toward Black people because they imply that existing social hierarchies reflect a naturally occurring structure. We tested this hypothesis in three studies (N 1⁄4 621). Study 1 revealed that racial essentialism was associated with increased prejudice toward Blacks among both White and Black a...

This mixed-methods study examined associations between prejudice events and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among 382 lesbians, gays, and bisexuals (LGB) and 126 heterosexuals. Using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, we assessed PTSD with a relaxed Criterion A1; that is, we allowed events that did not involve threat to life or physical integrity to also qualify as traumatic...

Past work suggested that dual identity was effective to reduce prejudice. This study extended research on dual identity and prejudice by identifying a boundary condition in this relationship, that is, group permeability. In Study 1, we replicated previous studies with Chinese individuals and found that inducing dual identity (emphasizing subgroup differences and a common nation identity), compa...

As a multinational country incorporating 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, China is concerned with the mental health of members of minority ethnic groups, with an increasing focus on supporting Chinese ethnic minority college students. Nevertheless, in daily life, members of minority ethnic groups in China often perceive prejudice, which may in turn negatively influence their mental healt...

In recent years, there have been growing efforts to understand and modulate stigma and prejudice from the standpoint of the psychological flexibility model, a pragmatic model of complex human behavior. The present paper provides an overview of the empirical evidence on the applicability of the psychological flexibility model, and its applied strategy, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), to...

Two studies investigated whether the content of in-group identity affects the relation between in-group identification and ethnic prejudice. The first study among university students, tested whether national identity representations (i.e., ethnic vs. civic) moderate or mediate the relation between Flemish in-group identification and ethnic prejudice. A moderation hypothesis is supported when th...