Applying imagined contact to improve physiological responses in anticipation of intergroup interactions and the perceived quality of these interactions

Keon West, Rhiannon Turner, Liat Levita

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This experiment (N 5 49) is the first to show that imagined contact can bufferanticipatory physiological responses to future interactions, and improve the qualityof these interactions. Participants imagined a positive interaction with a person withschizophrenia, or in a control condition, a person who did not have schizophrenia. They then interacted with a confederate whom they believed had schizophrenia. Participants in the imagined contact condition reported more positive attitudes andless avoidance of people with schizophrenia, displayed smaller anticipatory physio-logical responses, specifically smaller changes in interbeat interval and skin conduct-ance responses, and had a more positive interaction according to the confederate.These findings support applying imagined contact to improve interactions with people with severe mental illnesses.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)425-436
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of Applied Social Psychology
Volume45
Issue number8
Early online date03 Mar 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2015

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