Mediated Contact, Intergroup Attitudes, and Ingroup Members’ Basic Values: South Koreans and Migrant Workers

Hyeyeon Ju, Sung-Yeon Park, Jae C. Shim, Yunhee Ku

Abstract


An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of mediated contact between ethnic Koreans and migrant workers in South Korea. Positive contact generated more positive perception of and affect toward the migrant workers but did not change South Koreans’ social distance from migrant workers. The effects of negative contact, on the other hand, were consistently significant across all three attitude measures. When the effect sizes of positive and negative mediated contact were compared, positive contact generated a stronger effect, albeit only marginally significant, than negative contact on the perception of migrant workers. In the affect and social distance measures, no significant difference was found. Furthermore, negative mediated contact increased power values through its influence on the attitudes toward migrant workers; parallel indirect effects of positive contact on universalism values were not found. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, followed by suggestions for future studies.


Keywords


migrant workers, Korea, intergroup contact, mediated contact, power values, positive-negative contact asymmetry

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