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This study tests how the density of the social network in which intergroup contact takes place might affect the extent to which contact improves intergroup attitudes. Having contact with more outgroup members in dense social networks, in which everybody knows each other, may reinforce contact's positive effect. In this case, outgroup contact is shared with ingroup members, which suggests positive ingroup norms toward the outgroup. Alternatively, more contact in denser networks may improve intergroup attitudes less because density may increase subtyping or reduce the salience of ethnic group memberships. These competing hypotheses are tested among white American adults in a nonprobability online sample (N = 305) and in a representative national sample (N = 1270). In both studies, contact is associated with more positive attitudes toward racial outgroups but the positive contact effect is weakened if that contact takes place in a denser social network.

Egocentric network studies and many general population surveys rely on proxy reports about network contacts of study participants that are asked in name interpreter questions. A central concern is the extent to which proxy reports match the answers these contacts would give themselves if they would be directly interviewed. Based on the theory of survey satisficing, the present research proposes a theoretical framework that allows predicting when proxy reports are likely to match self-reports. Congruence is higher if respondents possess the motivation and ability to answer a proxy question effortfully, and if the task is not too difficult. Moreover, the theory of survey satisficing states that motivation, abilities, and task difficulty are not independent of each other, which provides an explanation for inconsistent findings in the literature. Results from two egocentric network studies study among German adults (N = 756) and among Dutch middle school students (N = 679), in which network contacts were also interviewed, are in line with these hypotheses. Design recommendations for egocentric network studies are provided.

Egocentric network studies and many general population surveys rely on proxy reports about network contacts of study participants that are asked in name interpreter questions. A central concern is the extent to which proxy reports match the answers these contacts would give themselves if they would be directly interviewed. Based on the theory of survey satisficing, the present research proposes a theoretical framework that allows predicting when proxy reports are likely to match self-reports. Congruence is higher if respondents possess the motivation and ability to answer a proxy question effortfully, and if the task is not too difficult. Moreover, the theory of survey satisficing states that motivation, abilities, and task difficulty are not independent of each other, which provides an explanation for inconsistent findings in the literature. Results from two egocentric network studies study among German adults (N = 756) and among Dutch middle school students (N = 679), in which network contacts were also interviewed, are in line with these hypotheses. Design recommendations for egocentric network studies are provided.

This study (1) tested the effectiveness of a new survey tool to collect ego-centered network data and (2) assessed the impact of giving people feedback about their network on subsequent responses. The new tool, GENSI (Graphical Ego-centered Network Survey Interface), allows respondents to describe all network contacts at once via a graphical representation of their networks. In an online experiment, 434 American adults were randomly assigned to answer traditional network questions or GENSI and were randomly assigned to receive feedback about their network or not. The traditional questionnaire and GENSI took the same amount of time to complete, and measurements of racial composition of the network showed equivalent convergent validity in both survey tools. However, the new tool appears to solve what past researchers have considered to be a problem with online administration: exaggerated numbers of network connections. Moreover, respondents reported enjoying GENSI more than the traditional tool. Thus, using a graphical interface to collect ego-centered network data seems to be promising. However, telling respondents how their network compared to the average Americans reduced the convergent validity of measures administered after the feedback was provided, suggesting that such feedback should be avoided.

This study examines whether negative contact with immigrants promotes voting for radical right‐wing parties, to what extent this relationship can be explained by feelings of outgroup threat, and whether this relationship depends on perceived personal and collective self‐efficacy. Hypotheses were tested among 630 native Dutch respondents, mainly living in multicultural neighborhoods. The results show that negative contact with immigrants is associated with feelings of personal (egocentric) and group (sociotropic) threat, and both these feelings, in turn, are associated with radical right‐wing voting. However, negative intergroup contact is less strongly related to egocentric threat when individuals feel able to personally address negative situations with other people (personal self‐efficacy). Furthermore, the findings suggest that negative intergroup contact is less strongly related to sociotropic threat when individuals believe that people in their neighborhood are able to collectively address some negative situations (collective self‐efficacy).

Research on the influence of the number of ethnic minority group classmates on majority group students' interethnic attitudes produced conflicting results. With data from 728 early adolescents, we found that the effect of the ethnic class composition depends on two opposing student-level mechanisms. First, majority group students who liked a larger number of minority group classmates developed more positive attitudes toward minority groups. Second, students who disliked a larger number of outgroup classmates developed more negative outgroup attitudes. In our sample, these two effects neutralized each other because the sample consisted of about the same number of students that liked most of their outgroup classmates and students that disliked most outgroup classmates. Results were consistent in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. These results support a new interpretation of the mixed findings in past research, suggesting that past studies may have differed in the number of students who liked and disliked outgroup classmates.

In recent decades, research in political psychology has illuminated the psychological processes underlying important political action, both by ordinary citizens and by political leaders. As the world has become increasingly engaged in thinking about politics, this volume reflects some exciting new work by political psychologists to understand the psychological processes underlying Americans' political thinking and action. In 13 chapters, world-class scholars present new in-depth work exploring public opinion, social movements, attitudes toward affirmative action, the behavior of political leaders, the impact of the 9/11 attacks, and scientists' statements about global warming and gasoline prices. There are also studies of attitude strength that compare the causes and consequences of various strength-related constructs. The volume will appeal to a wide range of researchers and students in political psychology and political science, and may be used as a text on upper-level courses requiring a scholarly and contemporary review of major issues in the field.

Despite much attention for group polarization in online environments, little is known about how group membership affects online behavior. We designed an online platform where ethnic minority and majority users in the Netherlands participated in discussions about controversial topics (homosexuality and abortion). Participants were randomly assigned to either progressive, conservative, or mixed discussions on these topics, which were ostensibly held among ethnic minority or majority users. We find that when ethnic minority users are exposed to discussions among the ethnic majority (i.e., outgroup) with which they disagree, they are less likely to express their opinions and more likely to deviate from their personal opinions. Among ethnic majority users, we find the opposite: when confronted with a discussion among the ethnic minority with which they disagree, they are more likely to voice their opinion and less likely to deviate from their personal opinions. This shows that group membership can affect online polarization.

Ethnic minorities from more traditional countries tend to hold more conservative views towards homosexuality compared to the ethnic majority population in Western Europe. Assimilation theory predicts that this difference diminishes over time because of exposure and contact between these groups. The role of ethnic classroom composition in this process of cultural assimilation is poorly understood. Therefore, this article examines the role of the country of origin of adolescents and their classroom peers in the assimilation of attitudes towards homosexuality. Using two-wave panel data on 18,058 students in 867 classrooms in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, we find that the attitudes towards homosexuality in classroom peers' country of origin are positively associated with attitudes towards homosexuality of respondents in the first wave but have no effect on subsequent changes in these attitudes over a two-year period. We find some variations in this association according to individual-level characteristics, but these results are not consistent across the countries that we study. Together, these results suggest that the classroom is an important socializing context in the formation of cultural values, and that its influence is relatively uniform across groups.

Interethnic contact is important for social cohesion and has been shown to vary with people's socio-economic status (SES). There is some evidence that SES has opposite effects on interethnic contact for non-Western ethnic minorities and for majority members in Western countries. Whereas minority members with a higher SES tend to have more contact with natives, natives with a higher SES tend to have less inter-ethnic contact. To replicate and further understand these contrasting findings, we focused on interethnic friendships in particular and tested simultaneously for majority and minority members whether preferences for cultural similarity, opportunities to meet ethnic others, and disapproval of third parties, mediate the relationship between SES and having interethnic friendships. Analyses of 368 natives and 267 non-Western ethnic minority members in the Netherlands confirmed the contrasting effects of SES on interethnic friendships for these two groups. Importantly, we found that for minority members higher SES was related to more friendships with natives through more meeting opportunities. For natives, higher SES was related to fewer friendships with ethnic minorities, however, this relationship could not be explained by lower meeting opportunities. Preferences for cultural similarity and third-party disapproval did not explain the link between SES and interethnic friendships for any of the two groups.

This study examines how classroom and neighborhood ethnic diversity affect adolescents' tendency to form same‐ versus cross‐ethnic friendships when they enter middle school. Hypotheses are derived from exposure, conflict, and constrict theory. Hypotheses are tested among 911 middle school students (43 classrooms, nine schools) in the Netherlands. Multilevel (p2) social network analyses show that students were more likely to engage in same‐ethnic rather than cross‐ethnic friendships. In line with conflict theory, greater classroom and neighborhood diversity were related to stronger tendencies to choose same‐ethnic rather than cross‐ethnic friends, among both ethnic majority and minority students. Diversity did not hamper reciprocity, as students in more ethnically diverse classrooms were even more likely to reciprocate friendships.

Immigrants who strongly identify with the host country have more native friends than immigrants with weaker host country identification. However, the mechanisms underlying this correlation are not well understood. Immigrants with strong host country identification might have stronger preferences for native friends, or they might be more often chosen as friends by natives. In turn, having native friends or friends with strong host country identification might increase immigrants' host country identification. Using longitudinal network data of 18 Dutch school classes, we test these hypotheses with stochastic actor-oriented models. We find that immigrants' host country identification affects friendship selections of natives but not of immigrants. We find no evidence of social influence processes.