‘Gringos’ in Mexico: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Effects of Language School-Promoted Contact on Intergroup Bias

Abstract

A longitudinal field study examined Pettigrew’s (1998) intergroup contact theory and Gaertner et al.’s (2000) Common Ingroup Identity Model (CIIM). In Pettigrew’s model, the contact-prejudice relation is mediated by changing behavior, ingroup reappraisal, generating affective ties, and learning about the outgroup. Pettigrew’s integration of the three chief models of contact generalization into a time-sequence holds that contact first elicits decategorization, then salient categorization, and finally recategorization. In CIIM, these three levels of categorization—plus a fourth, dual identity—are thought to be mediators in the contact-prejudice relation. Results underline the crucial mediating role of behavior modification in Pettigrew’s model and interpersonal and superordinate levels in CIIM. An attempt to partially integrate the two models is presented.