When members of different groups have optimal contact (i.e., equal status, cooperation/common goal, acquaintance potential, authority sanction) intergroup attitudes will be improved (Allport, 1954). However, very little optimal contact research has focused on attitudes toward mentally ill persons. Moreover, it is unclear whether and when these attitudes generalize beyond the initial contact setting (e.g., to different settings, to entire outgroups, to outgroups not involved in the contact setting, over time). Employing a 2 (Stigmatized Target: confederate with schizophrenia, Black confederate) x 2 (Social Support after Contact: Social Support, Control) between subjects design with repeated measures the proposed research aims to first examine the influence of all of the optimal intergroup contact criteria on attitudes toward members of invisible and visible stigmatized groups. Second, this study will investigate the influence these criteria on generalized intergroup attitudes. Finally, this project will examine the role of social support as a mechanism that augments the process of generalization over time. Of note, the proposed project will be among the first intergroup contact studies to adopt analytic procedures for nested data; multilevel modeling.
