How does contact valence and group salience affect outgroup attitudes in asynchronous computer mediated contact? Experiments on intergroup contact via social media posts

The prejudice reduction potential of face-to-face intergroup contact is widely established, but we know much less about computer-mediated intergroup contact (online contact) specifically via social media where interactions are less controlled and mostly asynchronous. Additionally, much of the work on online contact has focused on positive, controlled contact, neglecting the effect of negative contact. We examined the effects of mediated contact via online posts with differing valence (positive, negative, and neutral) in three experimental studies, in an imaginary scenario (Study 1: N = 120) and a real intergroup scenario with South and North Indians (Study 2: N = 296, Study 3: N = 336). Main effects of One way and factorial ANOVA showed that contact valence significantly affected outgroup attitudes in Study 1 & 2 but was not replicated in Study 3, where quality and quantity of past contact and status differences emerged as significant predictors of attitudes. Multiple mediation analysis revealed that intergroup anxiety and quality of contact explained changes in attitudes, which was less affected by valence and more by regional identity and history of contact. Findings are discussed in light of the possibilities and limitations of asynchronous mediated contact on social media.