Abstract: Abstract: Previous research shows that ethnic essentialism has negative influence on many aspects for interpersonal and intergroup relationship—such as ethnic essentialism would increases the cognition of intergroup differences, individuals who hold strong ethnic essentialism beliefs has more vehement stereotypes and prejudices towards other ethnic groups, and ethnic essentialism also hinder the cross-ethnic interaction and cultural adaptation, meanwhile ethnic essentialism is "the legal reason" that mainstream groups maintain unequal social status, etc.. Therefore, the current study only examines the negative influence of ethnic essentialism on interpersonal and intergroup relationship, has not yet explored whether ethnic essentialism can change. Supposed it can be changed, which factors can be used to change the mechanism? According to perspective from intergroup contact theory, this study examines the mechanism of weakening ethnic essentialism beliefs from an intergroup contact theory perspective. Study 1 selected 670 ethnic minority and mainstream groups of college students in China as subjects, using the questionnaire method to investigate three core variables—include ethnic contact, ethnic essentialism and contact attitude—and the relationship between among 3 variables would be analyzed. Results of this study show that for minority subjects, there is a significant negative correlation between ethnic contact and ethnic essentialism, for mainstream group subjects, although there is negative correlation but without significance; and there is a significant positive correlation between ethnic contact and ethnic contact attitude. Study 2 selected 241 minority college students as subjects to investigate four variables —ethnic essentialism, cultural identity, cultural similarity perception and ethnic contact (with majority group), and to examine the mediating role of cultural identity and cultural similarities between ethnic contact and ethnic essentialism. The result shows that culture similarity is positively correlated ethnic contact, while cultural identity and ethnic contact showed a significant negative correlation; cultural identity and cultural similarity plays a mediating role between ethnic contact and ethnic essentialism. In conclusion, it can be analyzed from this research results, the author argue that ethnic contact can weaken ethnic essentialism, promote interaction among the ethnic groups and improve ethnic relations. the mechanism that ethnic contact weakens ethnic essentialism is that it strengthens cultural similarity perception between ethnic groups and decreases ingroup cultural identity. Therefore, in the practice of promoting ethnic relations, it is necessary to create opportunities for contact and communication among ethnic groups to reduce prejudice by weakening ethnic essentialism, which can promote positive ethnic relationship. This research enriches the conclusion on psychological mechanism of intergroup contact improving intergroup relations, and deepen the understanding about ethnic essentialism, which also contribute to relevant theory and practice.

Key words: Key words: ethnic contact, ethnic essentialism, cultural identity, cultural similarity

摘要： 采用问卷法，以911名少数民族和汉族大学生为被试，探讨了民族接触减弱民族本质论及其机制问题。研究1检验了民族接触与民族本质论、民族交往态度的关系，结果表明，少数民族被试的民族接触与民族本质论存在显著负相关，汉族被试存在负相关但不显著；研究2检验了少数民族被试的本民族文化认同和与汉族文化的相似性感知在民族接触和民族本质论之间的中介作用。结果表明，文化认同和文化相似性完全中介了民族接触和民族本质论之间的负相关。文章认为民族接触可以通过增加民族之间文化相似性感知、降低内群体的文化认同而减弱民族本质论信念。最后讨论了本研究在理论和实践方面的贡献，以及存在的局限性。

关键词: 民族接触，民族本质论，文化认同，文化相似性