ABSTRACT
Contact mechanism is the socialization effect occurring from interethnic contact (Pettigrew 1998). Social psychologists have initially developed this framework in order to understand the processes behind the development of prejudiced attitudes (Allport 1979; Pettigrew 1998; Pettigrew and Tropp 2006). Most of this research has focused on the conditions as to why successful contact occurs and how it reduces prejudice (Pettigrew 1998; Pettigrew and Tropp 2006; Hewstone 2009). Among these conditions, Pettigrew (1998) finds: (1) equal status among the groups; (2) a common goal between the participants; (3) inter-group cooperation; and (4) institutional support. Small-scale voluntary organizations are therefore seen as optimal sites for inter-group contact to take place. Contact with diverse others is often argued to be conducive to the development of generalized trust (see Putnam 2007). Reduced prejudice is clearly not the same as increased trust, since the former involves decreasing negative emotions towards a specific out-group, whereas the latter requires one to extend a positive emotion towards the unknown other. It is important to note that the social capital literature posits that out-groups can be anyone different to the person in socio-economic and cultural terms. Therefore, there are ample conceptual parallels for the contact mechanism to be theoretically relevant to studies of generalized trust (see Hewstone 2009).
