Reducing prejudice through imagined social contact

Download
2013
Küçükkömürler, Sanem
Imagined Contact Theory is studied to examine whether there is an individual difference and remaining effect of imagined contact; and to determine more effective manipulation technique. Imagined Contact Theory suggests that imagining an out-group member in a contact situation leads to an improvement in attitudes toward that out-group (Turner, Crisp, & Lambert, 2007). Individual differences, as using imagination more in daily life, may facilitate the prejudice decreasing effect of imagined contact. In the first study, FRP (fantasy role playing) gamers were selected to examine individual differences and it is expected to find enhanced imagined contact effect because of their practicing of imagination (Study 1a) and long term effect of imagined contact is examined (Study 1b). In the second study, more effective manipulation technique is inspected and two manipulation techniques are compared depending on the literature which are detailed imagination and different exemplars imagination. It is expected to explore underlying cognitive working principles via comparing two techniques whether detail or different exemplar imagination is more effective for human thinking style. Results showed that, though imagined contact effect on attitudes toward homosexuals was found, being FRP player did not foster this effect. Secondly, effect of imagined contact on homosexual attitude did not change in the long run. Lastly, difference between manipulations could not be found. Results were discussed.

Suggestions

Effects of joint action and nature of task setting on time perception
Usal, Kerem Alp; Hohenberger, Annette Edeltraud; Department of Cognitive Sciences (2016)
In this paper we study the effect of social condition on prospective time estimation: do we perceive temporal durations differently long when we perform a task (i) alone, (ii) with a collaborative, or (iii) with a competitive partner? Within the Attentional Gate Model (Block & Zakay, 2006), we argue that joint settings require more attentional resources than the single setting, leaving less resources for time estimation. Therefore, we expect that (i) temporal durations are more underestimated in the joint c...
Relationships among attachment anxiety, avoidance, accepting the past, and autobiographical memory
Şengül (Boyacıoğlu), İnci; Sümer, Nebi; Department of Psychology (2006)
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationships among accepting and reminiscing the past, attachment dimensions, and autobiographical memory. University students (N=182) participated to the study (105 women, 77 men). The relationships among attachment anxiety, avoidance, accepting and reminiscing the past, and autobiographical memory were examined within the context of emotionally charged memories and the phenomenological properties of the recalled autobiographical memories, such as the...
Self-compassion and construal level theory: the role of self-compassion in decreasing the effect of social distance
Solmazer, Gaye; Özkan, Türker; Department of Psychology (2018)
Construal Level Theory (CLT) suggests that psychological distance determines the level of abstraction of mental representations used in cognition. It also suggests that this is important in determining how people evaluate, perceive and predict future, and behave. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of trait and induced self-compassion in CLT. It was hypothesized that individuals who are dispositionally high in self-compassion or who are situationally induced to adopt self-compassion con...
Encoding processes related to specific and overgeneral recall of the autobiographical memories in non-clinical depression
Güzel, Mehmet Akif; İmamoğlu, Emine Olcay; Department of Psychology (2007)
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the overgenerality phenomenon and to draw some inferences on possible encoding problems of autobiographical memories (ABMs) in a non-clinically depressed sample. Eighty-eight university students (25 male, 63 female) participated in the experiment using the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986). The effects of depression level (low or high), cue emotional valences (positive, negative and neutral) and cue number (one or two at each s...
The effect of cinematherapy on self-perception among adolescents: applications in clinical and non-clinical samples
Şendikici, Serap; Gençöz, Faruk; Department of Psychology (2011)
The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of cinematherapy and its interaction with subjective well-being levels on self-perception and its dimensions. Additionally, the study aimed to select cinematherapy movies in accordance with self-perception dimensions, and their therapeutic functions. Moreover, the role of cognitive-emotional identification beside similarity identification was investigated. Three conditions were constructed by clinical and non-clinical samples consisted of 34 partici...
Citation Formats
S. Küçükkömürler, “Reducing prejudice through imagined social contact,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2013.