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It’s so much deeper than that. For a lot of these *phobias, the concept of being friends with such a person is so foreign that merely reading a story about inter-group friendship has a measurable positive impact. See the below excerpt.
Cernat, V. (2011). Extended Contact Effects: Is Exposure to Positive Outgroup Exemplars Sufficient or Is Interaction With Ingroup Members Necessary?. Journal Of Social Psychology, 151(6), 737-753. doi:10.1080/00224545.2010.522622
Participants who read a story about the friendship between a member of a stigmatized group and the member of another outgroup scored higher on outgroup admiration than a control group and felt less threatened by the prospect of interacting with a member of the target outgroup. However, reduction of outgroup disgust, negative stereotypes, biased beliefs, and anxiety was or tended to be highest among participants who read a story about the friendship between a member of a stigmatized group and an ingroup member. (p. 747)
Basically, it’s like these people have never imagined the target of their bias as someone who you COULD be friends with.
It’s so much deeper than that. For a lot of these *phobias, the concept of being friends with such a person is so foreign that merely reading a story about inter-group friendship has a measurable positive impact. See the below excerpt.
Basically, it’s like these people have never imagined the target of their bias as someone who you COULD be friends with.