Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA; School of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
School of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
Soc Sci Res. 2023 Aug;114:102916. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102916. Epub 2023 Aug 2.
Social ties between members of in- and outgroups are theorized to reduce individual levels of prejudice. However, instances of intergroup contact are not isolated events; cross-group interactions are embedded in broader networks defined by various social processes that guide the formation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships. This project reconsiders the potential benefits of intergroup contact by applying a network perspective to examine whether friendships between youth of different sexualities can shape individuals' homophobic attitudes. The impact of cross-sexuality ties is evaluated through the application of stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOMs) to a two-wave sample of Dutch adolescents. Results indicate that the benefits of cross-sexuality connections become negligible when we account for how patterns of network connectivity and segregation are informed by other individual-level traits, such as age, religious background, ethnicity, and gender. In other words, heterosexual adolescents who are situated in network positions that provide opportunities to form cross-sexuality friendships would be expected to report less homophobic attitudes even in the absence of this intergroup contact. These findings suggest that the cross-sexuality contact observed in the social world often represents instances of "preaching to the choir," limiting the potential for intergroup connections to challenge systems of social inequality.
群体内部和群体之间的社会联系被理论化为可以减少个体的偏见水平。然而，群体间的接触并不是孤立的事件；跨群体的互动是嵌入在更广泛的网络中的，这些网络由各种社会过程定义，这些过程指导着人际关系的形成和维持。本项目通过应用网络视角重新考虑群体间接触的潜在好处，以检验不同性别的年轻人之间的友谊是否可以塑造个体的恐同态度。通过对荷兰青少年的两波样本应用随机主体导向模型（SAOM），评估了跨性别关系的影响。结果表明，当我们考虑到网络连接和隔离模式是如何由其他个体层面的特征（如年龄、宗教背景、种族和性别）来告知时，跨性别联系的好处变得微不足道。换句话说，处于能够形成跨性别友谊的网络位置的异性恋青少年，即使没有这种群体间接触，也有望报告更少的恐同态度。这些发现表明，在社会世界中观察到的跨性别接触往往代表着“对牛弹琴”的情况，限制了群体间联系挑战社会不平等体系的潜力。
