Explaining the Secondary Transfer Effect: The Role of Personality Factors

The secondary transfer effect (STE) is based on the idea that contact with a primary outgroup may shape attitudes towards secondary outgroups uninvolved in the contact setting. Most research has investigated attitudes towards the primary outgroup as a mediator of the STE. We conducted one correlational and one three-wave longitudinal study with Italian participants (Total N = 912), to test whether the secondary transfer effect can be explained at least partly by personality change. Specifically, we tested agreeableness and openness to experience as two facets of the five-factor model of personality as possible mediators of the STE. Main findings across the two studies are that the quality of contact with immigrants (primary outgroup) is indirectly associated with attitudes towards dissimilar secondary outgroups (gay people, individuals with disabilities) via greater agreeableness and greater openness to experience (in Study 2, STE effects emerged at the within-person level for openness only); effects for quantity of contact were inconsistent across studies. In general, the present findings show that (changes in) personality can underlie the STE. Implications of these findings for our understanding of the STE are discussed. Social psychologists agree that intergroup contact represents an effective strategy to improve intergroup relations (Hodson and Hewstone 2013; Paluck et al. 2019; Pettigrew and Tropp 2006; Vezzali and Stathi 2021). Recent research found that contact effects can extend beyond the outgroup one has contact with, as initially proposed by the classic contact hypothesis (Allport 1954). Specifically, contact with members of a group (primary outgroup) can improve attitudes towards groups uninvolved in the contact situation (secondary outgroups), an effect that Pettigrew (2009) labelled the ‘secondary transfer effect’ (STE). This type of generalisation supports the relevance of contact in reducing prejudice across society at large, by showing that the effects of contact with specific outgroups can spread widely across