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 language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 425-436 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Journal of Applied Social Psychology |
Volume | 45 |
Issue number | 8 |
Early online date | 03 Mar 2015 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Aug 2015 |