Indirect contact in social networks: Challenging common interpretations of the extended contact hypothesis

Abstract

According to the extended contact hypothesis, direct intergroup contact is not necessary for prejudice reduction; it suffices to know that ingroup friends have outgroup friends. However, extended contact is typically measured in a way that does not clarify whether people know the outgroup friend of their ingroup friend or whether they are even direct friends. A social network approach is used to compare extended contact when ingroup friends’ outgroup friends are not direct friends (open triads) to when there is a direct friendship with some (mixed triads) or all of the ingroup friends’ outgroup friends (closed triads). Results from a nonprobability sample in the US predicting feelings toward Black people (N = 313) and from a representative sample in the Netherlands predicting attitudes toward immigrants (N = 818) show that extended contact reduces prejudice only when some of the outgroup friends of one’s ingroup friends are known. This suggests that the extended contact effect should not be interpreted as providing a solution for situations where direct contact with outgroup members is not possible.