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Abstract
Two studies examined the extent to which individuals' racial attitudes are influenced more by interdependent others' attitudes than people with whom they do not mutually depend. Study 1 demonstrated that participants significantly changed their racial attitudes when they received disagreement feedback from an ingroup friend, whereas there was no change in attitudes when participants received disagreement feedback from an ingroup stranger, agreement feedback, or no feedback. Furthermore, feelings of interdependence mediated the relationship between feedback from a friend versus stranger and changes in racial attitudes. In Study 2, we manipulated interdependence and found that interdependent partners altered their racial attitudes after receiving disagreement information, whereas independent partners did not. The importance of interdependent others' attitudes in reducing prejudice is discussed.
Notes
Note. Standard deviations appear in parentheses beneath the means. Differing subscripts within a row indicate that the means are significantly different at p < .05.
1If an odd number of participants arrived to the experimental session, one participant was randomly selected to receive experimental credit without participating in the study. The paired participants were sent into the experimental lab room and the randomly selected participant was taken to a separate room, given a brief description of the study, and given credit for participating in the research.
2If participants indicated that they knew each other or gave any indication that they knew each other (i.e., talked to each other or interacted with each other while waiting for the study or entering the lab), they were not paired together as partners in the study.
Note. Standard deviations appear in parentheses beneath the means. Differing subscripts within a row indicate that the means are significantly different at p < .05.