INTERGROUP CONTACT EXPERIENCE IN DIALOGUES ON RACE GROUPS: DOES EMPATHY AND AN INFORMATIONAL IDENTITY STYLE HELP EXPLAIN PREJUDICE REDUCTION?
Open Access
- Author:
- Markowicz, Jocelyn Alysia
- Graduate Program:
- Counseling Psychology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 06, 2009
- Committee Members:
- Kathleen Bieschke, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Kathleen Bieschke, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Susan S Woodhouse, Committee Member
Keith B Wilson, Committee Member
Edgar Paul Yoder, Committee Member - Keywords:
- group cohesion
identity style
empathy
culture
race dialogue groups
Intergroup contact
color-blind racism - Abstract:
- This study sought to examine whether color-blind racism would decrease due to intergroup contact experience in Dialogue on Race (DOR) groups and to determine the factors related to reduction. Group cohesion and group leader characteristics were also examined to determine if the groups were working as expected. The participants for this study were 74 culturally diverse undergraduate students. The study was a pre- and post-test design with an intervention and control condition. During the pre-test administration all participants completed a survey (made of several instruments) via PsychData, an online research website. In addition, intervention condition participants also completed, within their respective Dialogue on Race (DOR) course groups, a measure of group cohesion and group leader characteristics during the pre-test administration. All participants completed a post-test survey within their respective Dialogue on Race course (DOR) groups. Participants were randomly assigned to either the intervention or control condition. After random assignment to condition, stratified sampling was used to assign participants to respective groups within each condition. Group cohesion was assessed by the group cohesion subscale of the Group Environment Scale (GES; Moos, 1994). Group leader characteristics were assessed by the Counselor Rating Form-Short (CRF-S; Corrigan & Schmidt, 1983). Color-blind racism was assessed by the Color-blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS; Neville, Lilly, Lee, Duran, & Browne, 2000). Empathy was assessed by two measures: Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1983) and Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES; Mehrabian, 1996). Informational identity style was assessed by the Identity Style Inventory-Third Revision (ISI3; Berzonsky, 1997). Repeated measures univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) and repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance were used to assess the first research question: Does intergroup contact significantly increase empathy and informational identity style, and decrease color-blind racism? The first analyses employed examined change in group cohesion and group leader characteristics (trustworthiness, attractiveness, and expertness). There was a significant increase in group cohesion within each intervention condition group. There were no significant differences in leader trustworthiness, attractiveness, and expertness within and across groups. These findings suggest that the groups were operating as expected and members’ experiences were not significantly different based on group leader quality. The second analyses directly examined the study research questions. Contrary to the hypothesis, there was no significant decrease in color-blind racism. Second, there was no significant increase in empathy. Third, there was no significant increase in informational identity style. Although significant changes were not present, trends suggest that perhaps with greater statistical power the trends observed might be significant. Since a significant change in color-blind racism was not found exploratory analyses were conducted to examine the second research question: What explains change in color-blind racism? Three separate sequential multiple regressions were used to examine each of the three subscales of the CoBRAS (i.e., unawareness of racial privilege, unawareness of institutional discrimination, and unawareness of blatant racial issues). Group cohesion was entered into the first block of each regression, empathic concern was entered into the second block, and informational identity style was entered into the third block. Contrary to the hypothesis group cohesion, empathic concern, and informational identity style did not account for a significant amount of the variance in unawareness of racial privilege and unawareness of blatant racial issues. However, group cohesion, empathic concern, and informational identity did contribute a significant amount of variance in unawareness of institutional discrimination. In particular, informational identity style accounted for the most variance in unawareness of institutional discrimination. The results of this study were inconsistent with past research that suggested that intergroup contact experience reduced prejudice. Results of the study did however provide some support that an informational identity style may help explain reduction in prejudice (unawareness of institutional discrimination) as a result of intergroup contact experience. Understanding factors that explain prejudice reduction due to intergroup contact experience may improve intergroup dialogue programming in various organizations and universities nationwide. In a post-2008 presidential election era it becomes increasing important to have meaningful and successful intergroup contact. Limitations of this study and directions for future research are discussed.