Intergroup attitudes and contact between Spanish and immigrant-background adolescents using network analysis

This study aimed to analyze the relationship among different evaluative reactions of the intergroup attitudes and contact in Spanish adolescents evaluating different ethnic minorities and in immigrant-background adolescents evaluating Spanish youth. This study was based on psychosocial models of great impact in the study of intergroup relations such as the Stereotype Content Model and the Behaviors from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes Map, and incorporated a new approach to the study of attitudes: psychological networks. In total, 1122 Spanish adolescents and 683 adolescents with an immigrant background (Moroccan, Romanian or Ecuadorian origin) participated in the study, aged from 12 to 19 years. They answered a questionnaire with measures of stereotype dimensions (morality, immorality, sociability and competence), emotions (positives and negative), behavioral tendencies (facilitation and harm) and contact (quantity and quality). The results show similar structural patterns in the six studied groups, with emotions acting as links between stereotypes and behavioral tendencies. Moreover, positive and negative stereotype dimensions appeared as independent dimensions that were part of different processes: sociability and morality, and competence to a lesser extent, were related to facilitation behaviors through positive emotions, while immorality was related to harm behaviors through negative emotions. This could indicate that, to achieve successful intergroup relations involving cooperation and the development of friendly relationships, it would be appropriate to intervene in parallel in these two pathways. Due to the centrality of positive emotions (and sociability and immorality) and, therefore, their capacity to affect the entire network, focusing interventions on these variables could be an appropriate strategy to achieve overall positive attitudes.