Walking in My Shoes: Imagined Synchrony Improves Attitudes Towards Out-groups
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Walking in My Shoes: Imagined Synchrony Improves Attitudes Towards Out-groups Gray Atherton1
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Liam Cross1
Received: 4 October 2019 / Accepted: 13 August 2020 Ó The Author(s) 2020
Abstract People are prone to dividing others into the categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. This can be particularly detrimental to minorities who may experience social exclusion, prejudice, and reduced access to equal opportunities. One method of improving intergroup relations is to create opportunities for contact. Common contact interventions have members of different groups meet and engage in conversation. There are also non-verbal embodied intergroup activities that produce the same effects. Previous work has shown that the pro-social effects of coordination may be linked to whether co-actors are classed as in or out-group members. The current study explored whether imagining walking in synchrony with inor out-group members changed majority members’ attitudes towards those individuals. Imagining walking in synchrony fostered greater increases in empathy and decreases in negative attitudes only towards minority group members following imagined coordination (not ingroups). Implications and future directions are discussed. Keywords Coordination Entrainment Synchrony Attitudes Pro-sociality Group processes Stereotypes
Gray Atherton and Liam Cross have contributed equally to this work. & Liam Cross [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University, Liverpool L39 4QP, UK
Introduction People are social creatures; we define ourselves by our affiliations, and in turn we gravitate towards the people who we see in ourselves. Through this gradual process of recognizing the self in others, we develop heuristics that allow us to quickly recognize the ‘us’ in ‘them’, or alternatively recognize how ‘they’ are not like ‘us’ (Turner, 2010). On a purely psychological level, research has shown strong effects of group dynamics on our social response patterns. When faced with either an in- or out-group member, we will consistently favour those who we perceive to be ‘like us’, both on an explicit and implicit level, particularly if we belong to the majority (Dasgupta, 2004). While in many ways understandable, given early developmental exposure to our own ethnic group (Kelly et al., 2009), such favouritism can lead to social problems. This is particularly pronounced in the context of minority groups who experience multi-layered disadvantages due to their out-group status. While the social divide between minority and majority group members has profound effects on the quality of life for minorities at the most pragmatic level, including identity-related stress (Utsey, Chae, Brown, & Kelly, 2002) and reduced access to equal opportunities (Wrench, Rea, & Ouali, 2016), it can harm those in the majority as well. While homophily, or relationships within one’s own culture may be the norm (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001), it may not be entirely positive. Research indicates that individuals
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