374 Part IV Dispositional Theories
One fascinating discovery from all these years of research on optimal contact
is the special importance of cross-group friendship in reducing prejudice. As Pettigrew
et al. (2011) point out, friendship involves extended contact across a variety of
settings, and this facilitates strong, positive attitudes toward the outgroup that are
resistant to change. One particularly moving study conducted in Northern Ireland
illustrates this power of friendship. In it, friendships between Catholics and Protes-
tants engendered both trust and forgiveness of the other religious group, and this
effect was the strongest among those who had suffered directly from the religious
violence in the area (Hewstone, Cairns, Voci, Hamberger, & Niens, 2006).
Some of the studies included in Thomas Pettigrew and Linda Tropp’s reviews
(2006, 2011) involved relatively simple methods of merely asking people how many
friends they have who are of a minority group (a measure of contact) and then having
them complete various self-report measures designed to capture the extent to which
participants endorse stereotypical views of minority groups. Other studies included in
the review however, involved a more complex methodology whereby participants
were randomly assigned to either groups that involved optimal contact with members
of a minority group as prescribed by Allport or groups that did not involve the opti-
mal contact prescribed by Allport. Although both types of studies found that optimal
contact reduces prejudice, the experiments in which people were randomly assigned
to engage in optimal contact or not showed the strongest reduction in prejudice
(Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). Of course, there is no reason such optimal contact must
take place in a laboratory, and Pettigrew and Tropp’s (2006) findings demonstrate the
great potential for community programs to be developed based on Allport’s prescription
for prejudice reduction. If such programs were implemented, research shows that
relations between majority and minority groups would likely be greatly improved.
More recently, Pettigrew and his colleague Anthony Greenwald (Greenwald &
Pettigrew, 2014) reviewed research on a heretofore under-examined feature of prej-
udice that Allport (1954) also posited. We often assume a direct connection between
prejudice and discrimination. Indeed, most definitions of prejudice explicitly connect
it to negative evaluation and/or treatment of outgroups. However, in his book The
Nature of Prejudice, Allport (1954) argued that this connection between prejudicial
attitudes and discriminatory behavior is an empirical one, not one to be assumed.
Much discrimination, Allport hypothesized, might actually be accomplished by
ingroup favoritism, not outright hostility toward outgroups. Greenwald and Pettigrew
(2014) reviewed compelling evidence from a variety of different areas of study within
psychology and sociology supporting the rather surprising claim that indeed dis-
crimination does not require hostility, and that unequal treatment is in fact more
easily produced by ingroup members’ bias toward helping one another, than by their
hurting members of a disadvantaged outgroup.
One exemplary research finding (among many) that shows this effect is the
“minimal group paradigm” which was first discovered forty years ago (Tajfel,
1970). Since its discovery, many studies have demonstrated that people are more
motivated by ingroup favoritism (even when the “group” they belong to is utterly
arbitrary) than by the desire to punish or disfavor an outgroup. Conformity is
another empirically validated contributor to this ingroup favoritism finding, and it
was posited by Allport (1962) as well. Sociologists have long studied “norms” and
studies show that unprejudiced people typically follow their ingroup’s norms. If