Gordon Allport's contact hypothesis holds a central place in social psychological work on interpersonal relations. The contact hypothesis holds that contact between members of different groups will reduce prejudice between members of those groups if four specific conditions are met. The contact hypothesis has inspired extensive research and received considerable support. Although it has been a very active area of research, the literature is disorganized and suffers from several theoretical problems. The current project proposes to use meta-analysis to help organize, refine, and extend the contact literature. Meta-analysis provides a set of statistical tools that have proven extremely useful in organizing and making sense out of a large collection of individual experiments and studies. The practical goal of the project is to organize the research literature. The theoretical goal is to clarify the importance of necessary conditions and to gain insight into the underlying processes that are responsible for contact effects. Intergroup contact offers strong potential for reducing the hostility and prejudice that social groups often display toward one another. The current project will lend some order to a research literature that seeks to develop ways of improving interpersonal relationships.
