Abstract
Due to the recent conflicts between China and South Korea (mainly the THAAD incident), we intended to examine whether mediated intergroup contact through TV series and films can be beneficial for improving their intergroup relations. Moreover, a novel type of indirect intergroup contact was proposed and termed as extended mediated contact. The general objective is to investigate and differentiate its relationships with intergroup relations (i.e. intergroup attitudes and post-conflict forgiveness) with those of mediated contact. Chinese university students were selected as the sample of our study and 366 participants completed an online survey. Results from the structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis revealed that both mediated and extended mediated contact positively predicted cultural affinity, which, in turn, positively predicted both intergroup attitudes and post-conflict forgiveness. As compared to mediated contact, extended mediated contact exerted significant but weaker effects. The bootstrapping method in SEM revealed that cultural affinity played a mediating role in the relationships of the two types of contact to intergroup attitudes and forgiveness.
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The study is funded by the Humanities and Social Sciences Project of the Ministry of Education of China (Grant Number: 18YJC740063) and Social Sciences Funding Project of Jilin Province, China (Grant Number: 2019B168).
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Cao, C., Meng, Q. Functional roles of mediated and extended mediated contact in promoting intergroup attitudes and post-conflict forgiveness: Mediating effects of cultural affinity. Curr Psychol 41, 816–826 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00612-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00612-8