Sahab Sofia, Haqbeen Jawad, Hadfi Rafik, Ito Takayuki, Imade Richard Eke, Ohnuma Susumu, Hasegawa Takuya
Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Department of International Cooperation Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.
Commun Psychol. 2024 Mar 21;2(1):22. doi: 10.1038/s44271-024-00070-z.
Intergroup contact occurring through indirect means such as the internet has the potential to improve intergroup relationships and may be especially beneficial in high conflict situations. Here we conducted a three-timepoint online experiment to ascertain whether the use of a conversational agent in E-contact platforms could mitigate interethnic prejudices and hostility among Afghanistan's historically segregated and persistently conflictual ethnic groups. 128 Afghans of Pashtun, Tajik, and Hazara backgrounds were assigned to one of four E-contact conditions (control with no conversational agent and three experimental groups that varied in the conversational agent settings). Participants in the experimental conditions contributed more ideas and longer opinions and showed a greater reduction in outgroup prejudice and anxiety than those in the control group. These findings demonstrate that E-contact facilitated by a conversational agent can improve intergroup attitudes even in contexts characterized by a long history of intergroup segregation and conflict.
通过互联网等间接方式进行的群体间接触有可能改善群体间关系，在高度冲突的情况下可能尤其有益。在这里，我们进行了一项三时间点的在线实验，以确定在电子接触平台中使用对话代理是否可以减轻阿富汗历史上隔离且冲突持续的不同种族群体之间的种族间偏见和敌意。128名普什图、塔吉克和哈扎拉背景的阿富汗人被分配到四种电子接触条件之一（无对话代理的对照组和对话代理设置不同的三个实验组）。与对照组相比，实验组的参与者提出了更多的想法和更长的意见，并且对外群体的偏见和焦虑减少得更多。这些发现表明，即使在群体间长期隔离和冲突的背景下，由对话代理促成的电子接触也可以改善群体间态度。
