Paper on the Role of Outgroup Friendships on Attitudes Towards Secondary Outgroups

This study, co-written by Tobias Stark and published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, examined whether adolescents’ friendships with members of a primary outgroup also lead to more positive attitudes toward other, secondary outgroups: Zingora, T., Bracegirdle, C., Stark, T. H., & Spiegler, O. (2026). Outgroup friendships and social influence in the development of adolescent attitudes toward secondary outgroups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000530

Abstract

Having outgroup friends not only improves attitudes toward the (primary) outgroup but potentially also toward other (secondary) outgroups. This “secondary transfer effect” is attributed to the generalization of intergroup contact, but it may also reflect social influence as friends shape each other’s outgroup attitudes. In three studies (two empirical and one simulation), we applied stochastic actor-oriented models to longitudinal network data representing friendships between adolescents. Across Studies 1 (n = 812) and 2 (n = 2,559), we found no evidence that having more primary outgroup friends was associated with a change in secondary outgroup attitudes; instead, adolescents’ attitudes became more similar over time to those of their primary outgroup friends. Study 3, a simulation, further showed that social influence can lead to either more positive or more negative attitudes toward secondary outgroups. Thus, friendships with primary outgroup members may have negative implications for secondary outgroups when those friends hold more negative attitudes. We discuss how social influence can advance research on the generalization of intergroup contact effects.