Contact Hypothesis

The contact hypothesis, in psychology and other social sciences, suggests that intergroup contact under appropriate conditions can effectively reduce prejudice between majority and minority group members. Following the Second World War and the desegregation of the military and other public institutions, policymakers and social scientists turned toward the policy implications of interracial contact, and the social psychologist Gordon Allport united this early research under intergroup contact theory. In his 1954 book The Nature of Prejudice, Allport outlined the most widely cited form of the hypothesis: that under appropriate conditions, interpersonal contact could be one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice between majority and minority group members, reducing the stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination that commonly occur between rival groups. In the decades since, social scientists have expanded and applied the hypothesis to the reduction of prejudice beyond racism, including prejudice toward physically and mentally disabled people, women and LGBTQ+ people, across hundreds of studies, though the size of the effect varies widely from context to context and empirical inquiry continues.