Business Commons^™

Perspective-Taking Increases Willingness To Engage In Intergroup Contact, Cynthia Wang, Kenneth Tai, Gillian Ku, Adam D. Galinsky

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Duplicate record, see https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/3631/. The current research explored whether perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with stereotyped outgroup members. Across three studies, we find that perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with negatively-stereotyped targets. In Study 1, perspective-takers sat closer to, whereas stereotype suppressors sat further from, a hooligan compared to control participants. In Study 2, individual differences in perspective-taking tendencies predicted individuals’ willingness to engage in contact with a hooligan, having effects above and beyond those of empathic concern. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that perspective-taking’s effects on intergroup contact extend to the target’s group (i.e., another …