Gordon Hodson’s research while affiliated with Brock University and other places

Intergroup contact is considered one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice. An extension of contact theory, the secondary transfer effect (STE), stipulates that contact with a primary outgroup can impact attitudes toward a second, uninvolved outgroup. Here, we test the direct and indirect effects of contact with the primary outgroup on attitudes toward the secondary outgroup through outgroup humanisation, assessing White, heterosexual Americans' contact with both Black and gay people ( N = 471; 52.7% men; M age = 44.90, SD = 14.75). Path analyses were conducted on four fully saturated models that included intergroup contact (quantity, quality), humanisation of each group, and intergroup outcomes (attitudes, collective action intentions). Direct generalisation consistently occurred from gay contact (quantity or quality) to Black attitudes or Black collective action. Only one indirect generalisation pathway consistently occurred: a greater quantity of gay contact humanised Black people, which itself was associated with more positive attitudes and stronger collective action intentions toward Black people. However, the converse generalisation was not found: Black contact was rarely associated with direct or indirect intergroup outcomes toward gay people. The present study is the first to find indirect humanisation pathways for the STE, but from gay‐to‐Black contact only. Implications for future research are discussed. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement .

Intergroup contact is regarded as one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice. However, recent longitudinal studies using contemporary statistical techniques (e.g., random intercept cross-lagged panel models [RI-CLPMs]) have failed to find evidence of within-person changes in prejudice following contact fluctuations. We propose that past time-lags may have been too long to capture change and conducted three studies with shorter time-lags of single days, weeks, or months. We also considered effects of positive versus negative contact frequency. We consistently found that people who are less prejudiced have more contact (i.e., between-person effects); however, fluctuations in naturally occurring contact were not followed by corresponding within-person changes in prejudice, suggesting shorter-term contact fluctuations are detached from prejudice. With abundant support for contact in the field, we argue that prejudice may be impacted by major contact events, or through gradually acquired cumulative experiences, but effects are not apparent when examining “thin-slices” of time.

Despite the stigmatization of sex work in society, little empirical research has examined attitudes toward sex work, especially its modern incarnations (e.g., sugar relationships, webcamming). Here, a sample of 298 US residents (Mage = 40.06 years; 59.1% male, 40.9% female) was recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. Various theoretical predictors (e.g., right-wing authoritarianism [RWA]), sociosexuality) were set to predict the degree to which four sex work domains (prostitution, pornography, sugar relationships, webcamming) provide cisgender women agency (beneficial) or harm them (detrimental). We found that the domains of sex work were organized hierarchically, as theorized by the so-called “whorearchy,” whereby the more “unfavorable” domains (e.g., prostitution) fall at the bottom, and the more “favorable” ones (e.g., webcamming) sit at the top. Additionally, multiple regression analyses revealed that RWA (negatively) and sociosexuality (positively) were the strongest predictors of sex work agency across various domains. In predicting harm, RWA, feminism, religiosity, and age were unique positive predictors, whereas sociosexuality and male (vs. female) self-identified sex were unique negative predictors, across the four domains of sex work. Moreover, individual differences (e.g., RWA) were often significantly stronger predictors of agency or harm among female than male participants. The results suggest that although sex work domains vary in agency and harm ratings, individual differences (most notably, RWA and sociosexuality) are important predictors across domains, especially for cisgender women. Given the growing prevalence of such online forms of sex work, along with growing evidence of sugar relationships, it will become increasingly important to track reactions as these forms of sex work evolve.

Intergroup contact has long been touted as a premier means to reduce prejudice and forge positive bonds with outgroups. Given its origins in psychological research, it is perhaps of little surprise that contact is expected to induce change within people over time. Yet using random-intercepts crossed-lagged modeling that parses within-person from between-person effects, Sengupta et al. (2023) recently found no evidence of within-person change, only unexplained between-person effects, regarding contact’s effects on outgroup solidarity in New Zealand. We conceptually replicated their study, focusing on modern racism and an affect thermometer as the outcomes, in a three-wave study of White British participants (NT1 = 946, NT2 = 667, NT3 = 591) and their attitudes toward foreigners. We replicated the general pattern described by Sengupta and colleagues, confirming between-person effects without within-person effects, suggestive of third-variable explanations. As a novel finding, we discover that differences in social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) can account for the observed between-person effects. Problematically for contact theory, contact effects, at least those relying on self-reported accounts, increasingly appear to reflect differences between people (person factors) rather than being context-driven (situation factors)—such that those lower (vs. higher) in SDO and RWA are more favorable toward outgroups, rather than intergroup contact bringing about positive outcomes itself. Implications for theory development and intervention are discussed.

Despite being frequently met with disapproval, interracial romantic relationships have the potential to transform intergroup relations through marriage and children. However, relatively little is known about the receptivity to these important intergroup relationships. Capitalizing on three historical events involving a world‐famous interracial couple, Prince Harry and Meghan, we expand the intergroup relations literature by longitudinally and cross‐sectionally examining White Briton's perceptions and receptivity to interracial romances. Study 1 ( N = 585) showed that intergroup anxiety around the couple's wedding was longitudinally associated with less receptivity to interracial dating and less favorable intergroup attitudes a month later, even when controlling for strong autoregressive paths. Study 2 ( N = 402), conducted around the birth of the couple's son (Archie), found that intergroup anxiety (negatively) and favorable ingroup norms (positively) were longitudinally associated with receptivity to intergroup romances and favorable intergroup attitudes a month later in statistically conservative tests. Study 3 ( N = 507), conducted at the time of the so‐called “Megxit,” cross‐sectionally found that media exposure to Meghan was positively associated with favorable ingroup norms which was, again, related to positive intergroup outcomes. However, these associations were suppressed by the perception that Meghan had tainted the Royal Family which was, in turn, negatively associated with the intergroup outcomes. Moderation analyses across the studies revealed these associations were often stronger for those who categorized the biracial Royals as more Black (vs. White). Together, the novel research highlights the often‐complex perceptions and longitudinal predictors of interracial romances and does so in historic social contexts.

Relative to the study of prejudice and stereotyping, the systematic study of how we animalize outgroup members is a newcomer to the study of intergroup relations. With remarkable gains made in the last two decades, the field is now represented by distinct methods and approaches emphasized across camps, with recent calls for conceptual integration (see this Special Issue). Our central contention is that the existing literature focuses too much on humans (and the psychological stripping away of humanness from targets) with insufficient attention to animals, particularly regarding how we think about and treat animals (i.e., human-animal relations). How and why we animalize other people is systematically linked to how we overvalue humans relative to other animals; dehumanization of other people carries its sting and clout because animals are disregarded or exploited as entities deserving less protection and fewer rights relative to humans. We argue that the dehumanization field would benefit from this perspective, including the introduction of novel interventions, but also that the spillover benefits would help us to better understand human nature and our future challenges.

In regression analyses predictor variables can suppress the effects of other predictor variables, sometimes even resulting in "flipped" relations relative to their zero-order relations (i.e. negative suppression). Drawing on research examining the relations between religion and prejudice, and between ideology and desiring "tall poppies" (successful people) to fall, we highlight examples where researchers appear to have made inappropriate or confusing interpretations of their findings. We compare these examples to a best practice illustration involving associations between psychopathy and counter-productive work behavior. Finally, we provide practical guidelines for thinking about suppression effects in research programmes.