The effectiveness of positive intergroup contact of new generation rural-to-urban migrants: Based on group identity and identification

Min-Quan CHAI Jian Guan

Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2015, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (5) : 1170-1177.

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PDF(808 KB)
Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2015, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (5) : 1170-1177.

The effectiveness of positive intergroup contact of new generation rural-to-urban migrants: Based on group identity and identification

  • Min-Quan CHAI1,Jian Guan
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Abstract

Intergroup contact is an important strategy in improving intergroup relations. On the basis of common goals, equal status, intergroup cooperation and the support of neutral institution, positively contacting with members of the out-group members can effectively reduce prejudice towards the outgroup, thus increasing confidence to the out-group and finally improving intergroup relations. But current researches challenge the effectiveness of positive intergroup contact, many researchers find in their researches that positive intergroup contact cannot improve intergroup relations, even have harmful effect. According to pressure and coping framework of intergroup contact, there are four coping patterns (engage, fight, flight, freeze) to the pressure of intergroup contact, but only engage pattern is effective. There are many factors having influence on whether individuals engage in intergroup contact, such as individual’s personality, sympathy, levels of anxiousness and knowledge to out-group. The term “new generation rural-to-urban migrants” refers to farmers-turned-workers who were born after 1980. Comparing with the first generation migrants who were born before 1980, researches find the new generation migrants have stronger willingness to become citizens, so they take more contacts with citizens, thus intergroup contact has important influence on new generation migrants’ integration to the city. In consideration of the paradoxical results of positive intergroup contact researches, the effectiveness of new generation migrants’ positive intergroup contact with citizens becomes an interesting and important research domain. This research selects 900 new generation migrants, who were recruited from 8 coastal cities of China, and the perceived of intergroup permeability as measure index to explore the effectiveness of positive intergroup contact, and the influence of perceived group victimhood and group identity to the effectiveness. Perceived group victimhood (PGV) refers to individual’s recognization of victimhood of their group in history or/and current society. Perceived group victimhood can evidently reduce individual’s confidence to out-group, and increase intergroup prejudice, so this research suppose perceived group victimhood has mediation effect to the new generation migrants’ positive intergroup contact. The results of this research suggest: (1)Positive group contact can effectively improve the new generation migrants’ perceiving of group permeability; (2) Perceived group victimhood of the new generation migrants has significant mediation effect to their positive group contact; (3) The new generation migrants’ citizen identity has evident moderation effect to their positive group contact; (4) Group identity of the new generation migrants has no significant effect in the relation of perceived group victimhood and positive group contact. Lastly, this research discusses the effectiveness of group contact and the relation of perceived group victimhood and group identity.

Key words

new generation rural-to-urban migrants / positive intergroup contact / perceived group victimhood / group contact effectiveness

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Min-Quan CHAI Jian Guan. The effectiveness of positive intergroup contact of new generation rural-to-urban migrants: Based on group identity and identification[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2015, 38(5): 1170-1177
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