Stereotyping and prejudice are two great forces that affect societies across the globe. It can be seen that divides are sustained at the racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural levels within society.
Even though social improvement has been achieved, these prejudices still exist and many of them are based on the fear of the ‘other’. Systematic inequalities make things worse for these individuals. Even in this complex situation, there is a strong and effective remedy for this issue, which is friendship.
Friendship, in the context of this article, goes beyond just the connection formed via shallow bonds. It is defined by trust, shared experiences, and respect between two people.
This article will get into the manner in which cross-group friendship, which refers to the friendships between individuals of different social, racial, or cultural backgrounds, can challenge stereotypes and prejudices.
We detail how friendship can make positive social changes through the use of psychosocial research, sociological studies, and provide real world examples.
Theoretical Foundations – Contact Hypothesis and more
The concept of prejudice and discrimination being reduced by interpersonal contact is something psychologist Gordon Allport spoke of in the Contact Hypothesis. Allport’s theory states that due to lack of information, ignorance, or a threat, people are convinced not to interact with those different from them.
Fortunately, contact theory in itself was aimed at resolving the above problems and focused on the importance of interaction, and the means of achieving friendship on the basis of equal social status, shared objectives and aid of some form of institutions.
His theory of intergroup relations, to his great fortune, was not only limited to formal settings such as workplaces and schools that have students of different races, but thanks to ongoing research, informal friendship settings have also gained popularity and focus.
Pettigrew and Tropp’s Meta-Analysis (2006) studying 515 intergroup studies in 38 countries confirmed that friendship is a crucial factor in reducing bias. Friendships implicitly involve cooperation such as engaging in activities unhindered by status differences. Friendships involve equal status and emotional intimacy that strengthens the impact of contact.
Furthermore, friendships, or the extended contact hypothesis of Wright et al. (1997) claims that knowing someone who had a contact with the outgroup can also be useful.
For instance, a white person who learns their cousin has a close Black friend can have a negative stereotype presume change. This highlights the potential impact of interracial friendships rather than their specific interactions.
Psychological Mechanisms Why Friendship Can Change the Way People Think
Friendship is beneficial because it serves as the reorganization of cognitive and emotional skills. The following are ways of how to achieve said reorganizations:
Categorizations vs Individualization
Friendship can be potentially dangerous because they thrive on categorization, which lumps people into ‘superficial’ groups. Friendship is powerful because it encourages individuation. A person is viewed most as an individual rather than a member of the group. Page-Gould et al. (2008) found that when groups of people that are friends from different backgrounds, they are more likely to ignore the labels that separate them as “black” or “Muslim,”, shifting the focus to a much kinder and fun labelled approach.
Looking Through Someone Else’s Eyes
Empathy is derived from emotional connections with friends. According to a neuroimaging study (Gutsell & Inzlicht, 2010) while empathizing with a friend, the regions of the brain responsible for emotions, like the insula, get activated irrespective of the friend’s context. This form of ‘neurological’ mirroring is what allows people to ‘feel with’ other people instead of merely feeling ‘about them.’
Friendships With a Stigma
Cognitive dissonance, which is the discomfort experienced when one operates in the boundaries of contradictory thoughts or beliefs (like ‘I have a friend who is Mexican Maria but my group thinks that Latinas should be stereotyped’), is obtained when one befriends a person from a stigmatized group. In order to solve the disconnect, people tend to shift their attitudes so that their beliefs become congruent with their actions, something that is exhibited in Festinger’s early experimental work (1957).
Self-Disclosure And Narratives
Friendships include telling people about the challenges you are facing, which makes outgroup members to be more relatable. For instance, if a straight person listens to their LGBTQ friend talk about discrimination they face, they rather may change their mind about stereotypes. This is in accordance with narrative transportation theory, where the assimilation of the story deeply hooks the listener and results in a change of attitude (Green & Brock, 2000).
Real World Implications – Studies and other Evidence
The theory makes a difference in all sorts of different places:
Schools and Universities
Students in multiethnic high schools with cross-ethnic friends showed less racial bias over time in longitudinal research done by Levin et al in 2003. There are also programs in universities that pair students like White and Asians as roommates, which Shook and Fazio in 2008 noticed leads to less prejudice over time.
Post Conflict Societies
In Rwanda, people on different sides of the conflict like Hutu and Tutsi can sit together on Friendship Benches, which are a part of grassroots programs that have led to improved intergroup trust and collaboration vital for reconciliation according to Kanyangara et al. 2014.
Workplaces
Some Diversity programs in companies, especially those that emphasize mentorship, lead to higher employee satisfaction, which Dobbin et al. 2015 associates with less bias. Google employs the ‘g2g’, or Googler-to-Googler network, which allows employees in different departments to meet, fostering cross cultural friendships.
Social Media and Digital Friends
Friendship can be formed over different groups on platforms like Facebook. Research conducted on users from America and the Middle East by Whitehouse et al. in 2021 showed that such online friendships can bring down Islamophobic attitudes, which contradicts the common belief that digital interactions are superficial.
Challenges and Limitations – When Friendship Isn’t Enough
Sadly, friendship on its own is insufficient to eliminate deep rooted bias within society. These are some of the core hindrances:
Superficial vs Meaningful Contact
Friendship at a basic level does not provide the necessary breadth needed for alteration in attitude. In the absence of shared vulnerability or teamwork, these interactions can strengthen negative notions (e.g., token friendships).
Structural Barriers
Policies like redlining and rampant structural segregation in schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces has made it extremely difficult for people to form friendships outside of their social circles. These policies need to be dealt with along with cross-group friendships.
Backlash and Resistance
In societies that are divided broadly, cross-group friendships stand the risk of getting backlash. Members of far right groups often label fellow members forming friendships with the opposing group as ‘traitors’.
Intersectional Complexities
Women of ethnic minorities such as Black transgender females for instance, face severe biases. Such friendships will need to tackle these multi-layered stereotypes to bring any positive change.
Societal Implications – Fostering Friendships for a Less Prejudiced World
In order to benefit from the value of friendship, society first needs to ensure that there are spaces for interaction between people of different groups.
Integrated Institutions
Communities, workplaces, and educational institutes need to promote inclusion and diversity. Initiatives like Mix It Up at Lunch Day (Teaching Tolerance) helps children who come from different ethnic backgrounds sit together.
Media Representation
Television and cinema have a huge impact on the fabric of society. Shows that center around diverse friendships such as Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Grey’s Anatomy are essential in promoting positive relationships.
Support from Policies
Governments can support endeavors such as Citizens UK which fosters inter-communal ties through organizing at the grassroots level.
Grassroots Movements
The campaigns like #FriendshipAcrossBorders and the International Day of Friendship by UNESCO serve as powerful campaigns to propagate the idea of connection being greater than division.
Transformative Power of Cross-Group Friendships
Deeply rooted prejudice and stereotyping is something which can be tackled, and does not have to exist forever. While friendship by itself is certainly close to maintenance and care, in combination with something else, it serves to be a very powerful tool used for tearing down these walls.
Cross-group friendships are able to offer strong support to tackle the challenge of closing socio-cultural gaps by providing empathy, us against them mentality countering, and cognitive bias demolition.
It is important to acknowledge that friendship isn’t the solution to every problem. It should be pursued in conjunction with strategies that address structural inequality.
One easy step we can focus on as people is engaging and listening to the stories of those who are different. Accepting different perspectives is tough, but in the end, we can work towards building a world which celebrates diversity instead of suffering from it, forged with genuine human connections.
