Un approccio socio-costruzionista alle relazioni interculturali online: contatto intergruppi, Sé Dialogico e riduzione del pregiudizio

The present research project is focused on the effectiveness of online intergroup contact in reducing prejudice towards the outgroup. By assuming a socio-constructivist perspective, we analyzed the role of the Dialogical Self in influencing the process by which online intergroup contact reduced ethnic / cultural prejudice, shifting from intergroup contact understood as inter-action, to intergroup contact understood as inter-subjectivity. With this in mind, we firstly conducted a meta-analytic analysis of the studies on the topic in order to test whether online intergroup contact reduced prejudice and which variables influenced such relation. Then, we tested the research design in a pilot study and successively applied it to two further studies, focusing respectively on dialogicity (i.e., the individuals’ ability to shift between different self- and other-positions) and on power (i.e., objective and perceived) as variables capable of influencing the relations between online intergroup contact and ethnic / cultural prejudice reduction. Overall, the meta-analytic results showed that online intergroup contact moderately reduced prejudice towards the outgroup. Furthermore, the results highlighted the need to analyze other variables that might explain such relationship, paving the way for subsequent studies. As far as the role of the Dialogical Self, in our first study we have found that the individuals’ ability to shift between positions while also moving towards more abstract levels of inclusiveness (i.e., human level) appeared to be a promising process for prejudice reduction, despite being controversial. On the contrary, to position themselves and others on the social level of inclusiveness limited the positive effects of the contact as a factor able to reduce prejudice. Furthermore, in our second study, we found that online intergroup contact had different effects depending on individuals’ membership to a majority or a minority group (i.e., objective power), as well as the perceived commonalities or differences (i.e., perceived power). Specifically, we found that online intergroup contact could reduce prejudice more for minority group members than for majority, and that integrational (i.e., perceived power based on communalities between the interlocutors) but not confrontational (i.e., perceived power based on differences between the interlocutors) power favored individuals’ dialogicity. Notwithstanding the reduced strength of some of the relationships observed, the present research project attempts to take a step towards a deeper understanding of what happens when two individuals from different groups interact online and how online intergroup contact appears to be an effective strategy in reducing prejudice, thanks to the seven specific features of the Internet outlined by the seminal work of Amichai-Hamburger and colleagues (i.e., anonymity, control over physical exposure, control over the interaction, finding similar others, accessibility and availability, equality and fun).