Imagined Contact as a Means of Improving Attitudes towards People with Learning Disabilities and Reducing Intergroup Anxieties

摘要

Background: It is well evidenced that people with learning disabilities areudexposed to multiple disadvantages including stigma and discrimination;udhowever, few interventions have been developed to tackle this. The aim of theudpresent study was to investigate the effectiveness of an intervention calledud'imagined contact' as a way to improve attitudes and reduce intergroupudanxieties towards people with learning disabilities. This was the first timeudimagined contact had been delivered as a face-to-face intervention for thisudtarget group.udMethod: University students (N = 107) were randomised to four experimentaludconditions (imagined contact condition; imagined contact control condition;udeducational film condition; and education delivered as text condition).udParticipants attitudes, anxiety and desire for social distance towards people withudlearning disabilities were measured post-intervention and at one-month followup.udResults: Imagined contact did not improve attitudes, reduce intergroup anxiety,udor reduce participants’ desire for social distance towards people with learninguddisabilities, compared to the other experimental conditions. Instead resultsudindicated that imagined contact significantly increased participants’ intergroupudanxiety towards people with learning disabilities. However, at one-month followupudit was found that imagined contact reduced intergroup anxiety and desire forudsocial distance.udConclusions: More exploration of the mechanisms of imagined contact areudneeded, particularly for highly stigmatised groups, such as people with learninguddisabilities, in order for it to be shown to be effective, above and beyondudeducational interventions. Due to the small sample size and convenienceudsample utilised, the findings in the present study should be viewed primarily asudpointers for recommendations for future research.