Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology

J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)

Published online 29 November 2016 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/casp.2294

Can Caring Create Prejudice? An Investigation of

Positive and Negative Intergenerational Contact in
Care Settings and the Generalisation of Blatant and
Subtle Age Prejudice to Other Older People

LISBETH DRURY1*, DOMINIC ABRAMS1, HANNAH J. SWIFT1,

RUTH A. LAMONT2,3 and KATARINA GEROCOVA1
1
Centre for the Study of Group Processes, University of Kent, UK
2
School of Psychology, University of Exeter, UK
3
PenCLAHRC, Institute of Health Research, University of Exeter Medical School, UK

ABSTRACT

Caring is a positive social act, but can it result in negative attitudes towards those cared for, and
towards others from their wider social group? Based on intergroup contact theory, we tested whether
care workers’ (CWs) positive and negative contact with old-age care home residents (CHRs) predicts
prejudiced attitudes towards that group, and whether this generalises to other older people. Fifty-six
CWs were surveyed about their positive and negative contact with CHRs and their blatant and subtle at-
titudes (humanness attributions) towards CHRs and older adults. We tested indirect paths from contact
with CHRs to attitudes towards older adults via attitudes towards CHRs. Results showed that neither pos-
itive nor negative contact generalised blatant ageism. However, the effect of negative, but not positive,
contact on the denial of humanness to CHRs generalised to subtle ageism towards older adults. This ev-
idence has practical implications for management of CWs’ work experiences and theoretical implications,
suggesting that negative contact with a subgroup generalises the attribution of humanness to superor-
dinate groups. Because it is difficult to identify and challenge subtle prejudices such as
dehumanisation, it may be especially important to reduce negative contact. © 2016 The Authors.
Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Key words: ageism; intergroup contact; dehumanisation; generalisation; negative contact; positive
contact

Age-related discrimination is reported more commonly than both gender and race-related
discrimination (Abrams, Eilola, & Swift, 2009). Despite legal protection against age dis-
crimination in health and social care (Age Discrimination Act, 1975; Equality Act,

*Correspondence to: Lisbeth Drury, Centre for the Study of Group Processes, School of Psychology, University
of Kent, Keynes College, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NP, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & Accepted 22 October 2016

Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
66 L. Drury et al.

2010), many older people feel that they do not receive the treatment they deserve because
of their age. Older people often report being treated with a lack of dignity and respect
(Age UK, 2013). Further, government reviews of five areas of health and social care in the
UK also support the conclusion that ageism continues within these settings (e.g. Centre
for Policy on Ageing, 2009a, 2009b). Whilst problems of institutional discrimination
can arise from structural factors (e.g. limited resources leading to age-based rationing
and difficulty with access to services), they can also occur ‘bottom up’, from the preju-
dices of individuals within an organisation (cf. Abrams, Swift, Lamont, & Drury, 2015;
Swift, Abrams, Drury, & Lamont, 2016). Tackling institutional age discrimination there-
fore requires a better understanding of the experiences of those that work in these organi-
sations and the contact they have with older people. In the present research, we focus on
the institutional care of older people, an arena in which there are known problems of elder
abuse and neglect.
Research reveals that care workers’ (CWs) positive relationships with care home resi-
dents (CHRs) are associated with better CHR health (Leedahl, Chapin, & Little, 2015),
whilst CWs’ ageist attitudes are associated with psychological abuse of CHRs (Bonnie
& Wallace, 2003; Weir, 2004). Prior research, however, has not explored the antecedents
of CWs’ attitudes to CHRs or older people more broadly, or how CWs’ interaction expe-
riences shape these attitudes. Using the social psychological theory of intergroup contact
as a framework (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), the current study therefore
explores how CWs’ prior interactions with CHRs, both positive and negative, relate to
their attitudes towards CHRs and whether these attitudes might generalise to older people
more widely. Given the increasing number of older adults in social care, it is particularly
important to understand how CWs’ interactions with CHRs may predict their attitudes
towards older adults in general.

Intergroup contact and ageism

Allport’s contact hypothesis (1954) holds that positive interactions between individuals
from different groups reduce prejudice. Ideal conditions exist when interactions are inti-
mate (e.g. friendships), when individuals have equal status, work towards common goals
and have institutional support. Meta-analytic evidence has established that positive contact
reduces prejudice towards a range of social groups, including age groups (Pettigrew &
Tropp, 2006).
Research exploring intergenerational contact demonstrates that young adults’ ageist
attitudes can be reduced by contact with older people in everyday encounters (Bousfield
& Hutchison, 2010; Drury, Hutchison, & Abrams, 2016; Knox, Gekoski, & Johnson,
1986; Schwartz & Simmons, 2001). Workplace intergenerational contact has also been
linked to reduced ageism (Allan & Johnson, 2009; for a review of intergenerational
contact, see Drury, Abrams, & Swift, in press). However, there is a lack of evidence to
suggest that these findings are generalisable to health and social care contexts where older
adults are more likely to be dependent upon their younger counterparts.
Health and social care settings offer unique opportunities to study intergenerational
contact in a context in which dependency varies. Moreover, it is possible for this contact
to be both positive and negative and to either confirm or disconfirm stereotypes and ageist
attitudes (Caspi, 1984). For instance, medical students running a health promotion
programme at older adults’ centres reported more negative attitudes towards older adults

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
 Negative intergroup contact generalisation 67

after the programme than before (Reinsch & Tobis, 1991). Yet, findings in health and
social care settings are mixed, some research reports a reduction in negative attitudes
(Meyer, Hassanein, & Bahr, 1980; Gomez, Otto, Blattstein, & Gomez, 1985), whilst other
research finds no change (Eddy, 1986; Reyna, Goodwin, & Ferrari, 2007).
In sum, health and social care contact research does not consistently support the wider
literature in which workplace contact reduces ageist attitudes (Allan & Johnson, 2009;
Nochajski, Davis, Waldrop, Fabiano, & Goldberg, 2011; Van Dussen & Weaver, 2009).
Additionally, little is known about the specific nature of CWs’ ageist attitudes (Eymard
& Douglas, 2012).

Positive and negative intergroup contact

Most intergroup contact research focuses on positive contact (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011),
such as agreeable interactions with a member of a different social group. Conversely, neg-
ative contact is associated with threat to oneself or one’s social group, can occur when con-
tact is involuntary and is frequently reported by those who experience repeated contact,
often in the workplace (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011). For example, Dhont, Cornelis, and
Van Hiel’s (2010) study of police officers’ workplace contact with illegal immigrants
revealed that positive and negative contact were independently related to their prejudice
towards immigrants as an outgroup.
A small body of research compares the effects of positive and negative contact. Analysis
of a national probability sample of 1383 German citizens found that positive contact with
foreigners (mainly Turkish Muslims) was more predictive of prejudice towards Muslims
than negative contact (Pettigrew, 2008). Yet, alternative research suggests that negative
contact may increase overt prejudice more than positive contact reduces it (Barlow et al.,
2012). For example, Graf, Paolini, and Rubin (2014) examined Europeans’ contact with
individuals from neighbouring countries. Despite being a third as likely to occur, negative
contact had a greater influence than positive contact on attitudes towards other national
groups. These divergent findings mean that it is important to investigate both positive
and negative contact when considering how contact may predict CWs’ attitudes.
The present study measures CWs’ positive and negative contact experiences with CHRs,
and examines how these may predict attitudes towards CHRs. Extrapolating from prior
research, we hypothesise that CWs will experience positive contact more than negative
contact and both types of contact should predict attitudes towards CHRs.

Generalisation of contact
The second question is whether attitudes towards CHRs, resulting from positive and neg-
ative contact, generalise to older people more widely. Pettigrew and Tropp’s (2006) meta-
analysis of 515 intergroup contact studies supports the theory (Pettigrew, 1998) that posi-
tive contact generalises in three ways: (i) from an outgroup member to other outgroup
members in different prejudice situations; (ii) from an individual outgroup member to
the entire outgroup; and (iii) from a primary contact group to an independent secondary
group. The current study will extend the second type of generalisation, by examining
whether contact with an individual can be generalised to attitudes towards known outgroup
members and in turn to the larger outgroup category.

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
68 L. Drury et al.

As mentioned, Pettigrew and Tropp’s (2006) meta-analysis provides evidence that fol-
lowing positive contact, attitudes towards an immediate contact partner become more
favourable and reliably extend to the contact partner’s wider social group. Yet, alternative
research suggests that negative contact may generalise more readily than positive contact
because of a greater influence on social category salience (Paolini, Harwood, & Rubin,
2010). High category salience facilitates the generalisation of attitudes from an individual
to the wider outgroup (Brown & Hewstone, 2005), and across two experiments Paolini
et al. (2010) found that category salience was greater after negative compared to positive
contact. Indeed, a field study found that negative contact with immigrant survivors of a
natural disaster generalised to prejudice towards the wider immigrant outgroup via
prejudice towards immigrant survivors (Vezzali, Andrighetto, Di Bernardo, Nadi, &
Bergamini, in press).
Therefore, the literature presents mixed findings regarding the potential of positive and
negative contact to extend to wider outgroups. As existing studies testing the generalisa-
tion of contact to outgroup attitudes have examined either only positive contact or negative
contact individually (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006;Vezzali et al., in press), we adopted a
novel approach including both types of contact in the same study. We predicted that
CWs’ attitudes relating to their positive and negative contact with CHRs would generalise
and shape their attitudes towards older adults, but that generalisation effects would occur
more readily for negative, rather than positive contact.

Intergenerational contact, blatant and subtle attitudes

Ageist attitudes can be looked at in a number of ways. Blatant attitudes are those of
which respondents are aware and can articulate, whereas subtle attitudes refer to less ob-
vious prejudice, such as expressing benevolent but patronising stereotypes that can be
expressed without conscious desire to malign. Research using stereotype trait attribution
measures shows that subtle ageism can be reduced by intergenerational contact
(Schwartz & Simmons, 2001). Further analyses of national surveys revealed that across
all ages, those with older friends are less likely to support the stereotype that incompe-
tence increases with age (Tasiopoulou & Abrams, 2006). Yet, analysis of similar data
revealed a weaker relationship between intergenerational friendships and blatant expres-
sions of ageism (Vauclair, Abrams, & Bratt, 2010). These divergent findings suggest
that respondents may be disinclined to express ageism blatantly, in which case subtle
measures may be more sensitive and less susceptible to socially desirable responding.
The present research therefore includes both blatant and subtle measures of ageism
and sought to test whether both types of attitudes generalise from positive and negative
intergenerational contact.
A type of subtle prejudice pertinent to older people is dehumanisation, which is defined
as ‘the denial of full humanness to others’ (Haslam, 2006, p.252). Dehumanisation is com-
monly mentioned in gerontology literature; the eldercare setting is seen as dehumanising
(Berdes, 1987), and healthcare professionals are accused of using dehumanising language
with older people (Cayton, 2006). Yet, although qualitative research reports CHRs’ expe-
rience of dehumanisation (Fiveash, 1998), there appears to be no quantitative evidence of
dehumanisation of CHRs. Dehumanisation is reduced by intergroup contact (Capozza,
Falvo, Di Bernardo, Vezzali, & Visintin, 2014), but to our knowledge no research has ex-
amined whether contact-related dehumanisation generalises from one group to another.

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
 Negative intergroup contact generalisation 69

Hypotheses
In summary, the present research hypothesises that CWs will experience more positive
than negative contact with CHRs and that both types of contact will predict blatant and
subtle attitudes towards CHRs. Furthermore, it is predicted that CWs’ attitudes relating
to negative contact with CHRs will generalise to their attitudes towards older adults more
readily than attitudes associated with positive contact.

METHOD

Participants
Questionnaires were distributed by hand and online to CWs at 22 residential eldercare
homes across South East England. The homes provided care for older adults with varied
levels of physical and psychological dependency. Participation was anonymous and confi-
dential, and respondents were entered into a cash prize draw. Sixty-two responses were re-
ceived (response rate 7.2%), three were removed as they exceeded 60 years old (an age
when an individual may be considered as becoming an older adult e.g. Abrams et al.,
2009) and three were removed because of excessive missing data. A sample of 56 respon-
dents remained (42 paper, 14 online) and were aged 19 to 60 years old (M = 40.41,
SD = 12.25), including 50 women and six men. To ensure that we were measuring inter-
group attitudes and participants viewed older adults as an outgroup, we asked, ‘in your
view, at what age do women [men] start being described as elderly?’ All responded with
an age older than their own.

Measures
Positive and negative contact. Positive and negative contact scales were adapted
(Dhont et al., 2010; Heitmeyer, 2002), and further items added to reflect contact within
the care context.
Positive contact with CHRs. Three items measured the quality of positive contact
(α = .86) by asking how much contact could be described as ‘pleasant’, ‘friendly’ and
‘co-operative’ (1 = none, 7 = all). The frequency of positive contact with CHRs (α = .88)
was measured by asking, ‘during the contact you have with service users, how often do
you’ in relation to five items; ‘have interesting conversations’, ‘share a joke’, ‘have posi-
tive experiences’, ‘learn something new from service users’ and ‘feel like you are sharing
time with a good friend’ (1 = never, 7 = very often). The means of both scales were multi-
plied to create an overall index of positive contact with CHRs (possible range 1–49).
Negative contact with CHRs. Three items measured the quality of negative contact
(α = .80) by asking how much CWs’ contact with CHRs could be described as ‘unpleas-
ant’, ‘unfriendly’ and ‘uncooperative’ (1 = none, 7 = all). The frequency of negative contact
with CHRs (α = .79) was measured by asking, ‘during the contact you have with service
users, how often do you have’ in relation to three items; ‘conflicts’, ‘negative experiences’
and ‘arguments’ (1 = never, 7 = very often). As with positive contact, the means of both
scales were multiplied to create an overall index of negative contact with CHRs (possible
range 1–49).

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
70 L. Drury et al.

Ageism. Blatant and subtle ageism (measured as the denial of humanness) towards
CHRs and older adults were measured.

Blatant ageism towards CHRs and older adults. Participants rated their feelings
towards CHRs using six 7-point scales with endpoints labelled with pairs of adjectives
(e.g. cold-warm) adapted from the General Evaluation Scale (Wright, Aron,
McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp, 1997).1 Responses to positively valenced items were recoded
so that higher scores indicated more ageism. Averaged items formed a reliable index
(α = .91). The CHR blatant ageism scale was repeated but in relation to non-family older
adults. Averaged items again formed an index (α = .89).

Subtle ageism towards CHRs and older adults. According to dehumanisation theory,
outgroups may be denied humanness along two trait-attribution dimensions (Haslam,
2006). Uniquely human traits distinguish humans from animals (e.g. broadminded) and
human nature traits differentiate humans from inanimate objects (e.g. fun-loving). Scales
measuring the attribution of traits include both desirable and undesirable traits (Haslam,
2006). However, our measure included only desirable traits (see Haslam & Bain, 2007)
as previous research examining young adults’ attitudes found that they deny humanness
to older coworkers by attributing low levels of desirable but not undesirable traits (Wiener,
Gervais, Brnjic, & Nuss, 2014).

Denial of uniquely human traits. Using a 7-point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = very much),
participants indicated how much CHRs possessed the following characteristics:
broadminded, conscientious, humble and polite. Reversed averaged items formed an index
(α = .77). Higher scores indicated greater denial of uniquely human traits to CHRs.

Denial of human nature traits. Using a 7-point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = very much),2
participants indicated how much CHRs possessed the following characteristics; active, cu-
rious, friendly, helpful and fun-loving. Reversed averaged items formed a reliable index
(α = .81). Higher scores indicated greater denial of human nature traits.
The denial of humanness scales were repeated using older adults as the target group.
Again, reversed averaged items formed two indices of subtle ageism, denial of uniquely
human traits to older adults (α = .79) and denial of human nature traits to older adults
(α = .83), with higher scores indicating more ageism.

Prior contact with older adults

Two items measured contact frequency (α = .76), with older adults outside of work on a
7-point scale (1 = none, 7 = a lot) ‘In everyday life, how much contact do you have with
elderly people?’ and ‘How many elderly people do you know?’ One item measured contact
quality ‘When you meet elderly people do you think the contact is mainly…’ (1 = negative,
7 = positive). Frequency responses were averaged and multiplied by quality scores (possi-
ble range 1–49).

1
Because of administrative oversight, blatant ageism measures in the online questionnaire featured 9-point scales.
2
Because of administrative oversight, subtle ageism measures in the online questionnaire featured 5-point scales.

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
 Negative intergroup contact generalisation 71

RESULTS

Attitude variables were standardised. To establish that the online subsample (n = 42) and
paper subsample (n = 14) were equivalent, we compared means and variances on all mea-
sures that used the same response scales. These comparisons confirmed that there were no
differences between the two samples3. Therefore, the within-sample standardised data
were combined across the two subsamples.

Amount and strength of contact experienced

In line with the first hypothesis, CWs experienced both positive and negative contact. More-
over, positive contact experienced with CHRs (M = 30.71, SD = 10.31) was significantly
higher than negative contact (M = 7.27, SD = 6.39), t (54) = 11.73, p < .001, Cohen’s
d = 1.58. Consistent with intergroup contact theory, positive contact was negatively corre-
lated with blatant ageism towards CHRs and older adults. Additionally, it was negatively
related to the denial of uniquely human traits to CHRs and the denial of human nature traits
to older adults. Negative contact was positively correlated with all types of ageism towards
CHRs and the denial of uniquely human traits to older adults (Table 1).
Multiple regression analyses tested relationships between contact with CHRs and
ageism. All variables were standardised and in addition to positive and negative contact
with CHRs, participant age, gender and prior contact with older adults were entered into
the model as predictors. Because of the low sample size, we used bootstrapped analysis with
5000 bootstraps. Consistent with intergroup contact theory, positive contact marginally pre-
dicted lower blatant ageism towards CHRs B = .31 (SE = .18), p = .092, 95% CIs [ .68, .03]
and lower denial of human nature traits to older adults B = .26 (SE = .15), p = .082,
95% CIs [ .53, .04], but did not predict other ageism towards CHRs or older adults (see
Table 2 for all regressions). Negative contact significantly predicted higher denial of
uniquely human traits to CHRs B = .30 (SE = .14), p = .039, 95% CIs [.01, .57], denial of
human nature traits to CHRs B = .33, (SE = .16), p = .033, 95% CIs [.02, .63] and denial of
uniquely human traits to older adults B = .28, (SE = .14), p = .033, 95% CIs [.01, .55] but
did not predict other ageism towards CHRs or older adults. In summary, in contrast to prior
research (Barlow et al., 2012) positive contact was more, rather than less, strongly related to
blatant ageism towards CHRs than was negative contact. However, negative contact was
more strongly and consistently related to subtle ageism.

Generalisation effects via attitudes towards CHRs

To test the generalisation hypotheses, we used PROCESS model 4 (Hayes, 2013) with
5000 bootstraps to test indirect effects of contact with CHRs on ageism towards older
adults via ageism towards CHRs. Again, we controlled for participant age, prior contact,
gender and the other contact valence. We chose this analytical method as we specifically
wanted to examine attitudes that generalised from contact with CHRs to attitudes towards
older adults, via their effect on attitudes towards CHRs.
3
T tests compared paper and online populations (for Ms and SDs see Table 1) on the following variables; partic-
ipant age t (54) = 0.38, p = .705; positive contact t (54) = 0.17, p = .862; negative contact t (53) = 0.03,
p = .974; prior contact t (54) = 1.18, p = .240. A chi-square test compared participant gender of the two popula-
2
tions X = (1,56) = 0.25, p = .618

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
 72

Table 1. Means, standard deviations and correlations among contact, attitudinal and demographic variables
L. Drury et al.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. Positive contact
2. Negative contact .55***
3. Blatant ageism CHRs .46*** .31*
4.Uniquely human CHRs .27* .36** .06
5. Human nature CHRs .25† .36** .07 .70***

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community &

6. Blatant ageism OAs .33* .13 .64*** .05 .06
7. Uniquely human OAs .26† .34* .03 .59*** .34*** .004
8. Human nature OAs .29* .24† .03 .47*** .56*** .07 .62***
9. Prior contact OAs .28* .05 .28* .04 .07 .23 .04 .04
10. Participant age .03 .07 .004 .16 .09 .06 .14 .13 .09
11. Gender .09 .02 .002 .19 .17 .10 .10 .02 .10 .36**

Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

M 30.95 7.27 2.11a/2.29b 3.80a/3.46b 3.19a/3.73b 2.58a/2.38b 3.24a/3.66b 2.81a/3.90b 30.59 40.41
SD 10.38 6.39 1.48a/1.59b 1.11a/0.66b 1.03a/0.62b 1.60a/2.00b 1.14a/0.82b 0.87a/0.79b 13.10 12.25
N = 56. CHRs = care home residents. OAs = older adults. Correlations are significant to
†
p < .10
*p < .05
**p < .01
***p < .001. Gender: Male = 1, female = 2. a = M and SD for responses to paper questionnaire (n = 42) blatant and subtle ageism both measured on 7-point scales. b = M and SD for
online questionnaire (n = 14), blatant ageism recorded on 9-point scales and subtle ageism recorded using 5-point scales. M and SD for positive contact vary from the statistics
reported in the t test, because of one case deleted listwise as one participant did not complete the negative contact measure.

DOI: 10.1002/casp
J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
 Table 2. Bootstrapped regressions of positive and negative contact and covariates on attitudes towards CHRs and older adults
Blatant ageism Denial of uniquely human traits Denial of human nature traits

B SE p 95% CIs B SE p 95% CIs B SE p 95% CIs

Attitudes towards CHRS

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community &

Positive contact .31 .18 .092 .68, .03 .10 .24 .699 .54, .36 .05 .23 .821 .50, .41
Negative contact .15 .19 .431 .22, .54 .30 .14 .039 .01, .57 .33 .16 .033 .02, .63
Age .01 .13 .922 .27, .25 .09 .14 .567 .19, .37 .01 .16 .939 .31, .32
Gender .02 .13 .900 .27, .25 .14 .11 .199 .06, .40 .15 .09 .102 .02, .35
Prior contact .20 .14 .181 .48, .08 .05 .16 .776 .36, .26 .09 .17 .626 .43, .24

Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Attitudes towards older adults
Positive contact .27 .19 .166 .71, .07 .09 .15 .535 .37, .22 .26 .15 .082 .53, .04
Negative contact .01 .16 .919 .34, .29 .28 .14 .033 .01, .55 .09 .13 .476 .17, .33
Age .04 .14 .798 .27, .30 .10 .13 .449 .17, .36 .15 .15 .321 .14, .42
Gender .08 .10 .415 .12, .29 .05 .17 .651 .19, .32 .10 .14 .437 .37, .17
Prior contact .16 .17 .355 .48, .19 .04 .13 .769 .23, .29 .03 .15 .852 .27, .31
CI = Bootstrapped confidence intervals. Gender; male = 1, female = 2. CHRs = care home residents.
Negative intergroup contact generalisation
73

DOI: 10.1002/casp
J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
74 L. Drury et al.

Blatant ageism
We tested the indirect effects of positive and negative contact on blatant ageism towards
older adults via blatant ageism towards CHRs. There was neither a significant indirect ef-
fect of positive contact .18 (SE = .12), 95% CIs [ .49, .01], nor of negative contact .07
(SE = .12), 95% CIs [ .15, .32]. (See Table 3 for all indirect model coefficients.)

Subtle ageism
Next, we tested the hypotheses that contact with CHRs would generalise the denial of
uniquely human and human nature traits to older adults.
Denial of uniquely human traits. The indirect effect of positive contact on the denial
of uniquely human traits to older adults through the denial of uniquely human traits to CHRs
was non-significant .05 (SE = .16), 95% CIs [ .41, .21]. There was, however, a significant
indirect effect of negative contact on the denial of uniquely human traits to older adults
through of the denial of uniquely human traits to CHRs .16 (SE = .08), 95% CIs [.01, .35]
(Figure 1) in which the total effect of negative contact on the denial of uniquely human traits
to older adults was fully explained by the effect of negative contact on the denial of uniquely
human traits to CHRs. More negative contact was associated with more subtle ageism to-
wards CHRs, which in turn predicted subtle ageism towards older adults.
Denial of human nature traits. The indirect effect of positive contact on the denial of
human nature traits to older adults through the denial of human nature traits to CHRs was
non-significant .03 (SE = .15), 95% CIs [ .34, .24]. There was, however, a significant in-
direct effect of negative contact on the denial of human nature traits to older adults through
the denial of human nature traits to CHRs .19 (SE = .11), 95% CIs [.001, .42] (Figure 2).
The pattern was the same as that found for the denial of uniquely human traits.
In summary, the results provide evidence that negative contact plays a significant role in
the generalisation of both types of subtle ageism.

DISCUSSION

The current research presents a novel test of whether positive and negative contact with an
outgroup member independently predict not only attitudes towards that group, but attitudes
towards others considered to be part of the wider outgroup. This was tested in the context
of intergenerational contact between CWs and CHRs in an eldercare setting. It was pre-
dicted that contact between CWs and CHRs would be experienced by CWs more often
as positive than negative contact, that each type of contact would predict CWs’ blatant
and subtle prejudice to CHRs, but that those attitudes would generalise to older adults as
an outgroup more readily as a result of negative contact than positive contact.
As predicted, CWs experienced more positive than negative contact with CHRs. When
controlling for the effects of prior contact, age, gender and the opposite contact valence,
greater positive contact marginally predicted reduced blatant ageism towards CHRs, whilst
greater negative contact significantly predicted the denial of uniquely human traits and hu-
man nature traits to CHRs. Therefore, the denial of humanness to CHRs was predicted by
negative (but not positive) contact experiences. Positive contact directly generalised to pre-
dict a marginal decrease in the denial of human nature traits to older adults, and negative

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
 Table 3. Bootstrapped regressions from indirect effects models

Blatant ageism Denial of uniquely human traits Denial of human nature traits

CE SE t p CIs CE SE t p CIs CE SE t p CIs

Total effects model

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community &

Positive contact .22 .17 1.33 .189 .56, .11 .09 .17 0.53 .596 .44, .25 .26 .18 1.46 .150 .61, .10
Negative contact .04 .16 0.27 .786 .28, .37 .28 .16 1.73 .090 .05, .61 .09 .17 0.52 .605 .25, .42
Age .11 .14 0.80 .429 .17, .40 .10 .14 0.70 .484 .18, .38 .15 .14 1.04 .302 .14, .44
Gender .05 .14 0.35 .728 .23, .33 .05 .14 0.38 .706 .23, .34 .10 .15 0.69 .494 .39, .19
Prior contact .24 .14 .1.68 .099 .52, .05 .04 .14 0.27 .785 .25, .32 .03 .14 0.18 .855 .26, .32
Direct effects model

Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Attitudes towards CHRs .58 .13 4.59 .000 .32, .83 .55 .12 4.44 .0001 .30, .80 .57 .13 4.52 .000 .32, .82
Positive contact .04 .14 0.30 .764 .33, .25 .04 .15 0.26 .796 .33, .26 .23 .15 1.52 .135 .53, .07
Negative contact .03 .14 0.18 .855 .30, .25 .12 .14 0.83 .411 .17, .41 .10 .15 0.69 .495 .40, .20
Age .08 .12 0.69 .491 .16, .32 .05 .12 0.44 .666 .19, .29 .14 .12 1.18 .246 .10, .39
Gender .07 .12 0.61 .547 .16, .30 .02 .12 0.18 .858 .27, .22 .19 .12 1.51 .138 .44, .06
Prior contact .13 .12 1.09 .281 .37, .11 .06 .12 0.53 .599 .18, .31 . 08 .12 0.61 .544 .17, .32
CE = coefficient. CI = 95% confidence intervals. Total effect model includes covariates: age, gender, prior contact and opposite contact valence. Direct effects model repeats total
effect model plus attitudes towards CHRs as mediator variable. IV = independent variable. DV = dependent variable.
Negative intergroup contact generalisation
75

DOI: 10.1002/casp
J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
76 L. Drury et al.

Figure 1. Indirect effect of negative contact on the denial of uniquely human traits to older adults.
Note: Non standardized regression coefficients. ns = non-significant, †p < .10, ***p < .001.

contact directly generalised to predict a significant increase in the denial of uniquely hu-
man traits to older adults. In the final analysis, only negative (not positive) contact indi-
rectly predicted ageism towards older adults via attitudes towards CHRs, and this was
evident on just subtle, and not blatant measures of ageism.

The effects of positive contact and negative contact on ageism

This study increases understanding of positive and negative contact experienced in a pre-
viously unexplored context, residential social care for older adults. In line with prior re-
search, we observed that individuals experience both types of contact in their workplace
(cf. Dhont et al., 2010). Moreover, consistent with the caring role, positive contact was ex-
perienced more than negative contact (cf. Graf et al., 2014).
The present research is the first to show that negative contact predicts the denial of hu-
manness to contact partners and illuminates how blatant and subtle forms of prejudice
might be differently associated with contact. However, the denial of humanness reported
was less than apparent for other outgroups (see Loughnan & Haslam, 2007). This may
be partly because of CWs’ internal values and positive motivation to interact with CHRs.
Despite this, the denial of humanness reported in this study reflected more consistent and
stronger levels of ageism than outcomes on blatant measures. A reason for the weaker ef-
fect of contact on blatant attitudes may be that it is a less sensitive measure of ageism in the
social care context. Given the sensitive nature of older adult care, CWs’ blatant ageism
may partly reflect socially desirable responding.
Findings also provide understanding of how positive and negative contact are associated
with blatant and subtle prejudice. Only positive contact predicted lower blatant ageism to-
wards CHRs (marginally), whilst negative contact significantly predicted subtle ageism via
the denial of both uniquely human and human nature traits to CHRs. A lack of equal status
between CWs and CHRs may explain the weaker effects of positive contact in this context.

Figure 2. Indirect effect of negative contact on the denial of human nature traits to older adults.
Note: Non standardized regression coefficients. ns = non-significant, *p < .05, ***p < .001.

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
 Negative intergroup contact generalisation 77

This notion supports Allport’s (1954) condition that equal group status is required for pos-
itive contact to successfully reduce prejudice. The findings suggest that even if experiences
of positive contact may be associated with more favourable attitudes, experiences of neg-
ative contact are associated with higher levels of subtle prejudice. More concretely, follow-
ing positive contact, CWs may feel friendly or warm towards CHRs, but following
negative contact CWs attribute less humanness to CHRs. This different pattern of associ-
ations between prejudice and positive and negative contact could illuminate the divergent
findings in previous research comparing the effects of positive to negative contact (Barlow
et al., 2012; Graf et al., 2014; Pettigrew, 2008). It suggests that positive and negative con-
tact may have more nuanced variations in their relationships with prejudice, depending
upon the way in which prejudice is measured and manifested.
Prior research has mainly addressed racial or ethnic rather than age prejudice, so it is
also possible that some aspects of age prejudice and age contact are distinct from those af-
fecting other intergroup relationships (cf. Drury et al., 2016). Contact with CHRs seems
less likely to involve aspects of intergroup threat and anxiety that can arise from interracial
contact. Furthermore, research suggests that groups evaluated as warm but incompetent,
such as older adults, are more likely to be passively harmed, whilst groups perceived as
competent or competitive are more likely to be actively harmed (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick,
2007). Both forms of harm can be serious. The potential for passive harm may not be
reflected in blatant measures of prejudice such as the General Evaluation Scale (Wright
et al., 1997), but may be signalled more clearly by subtle measures, as reflected in the re-
lationship between negative contact and the denial of humanness.

Generalisation of negative and positive contact

Previous research demonstrates that positive and negative contact extends from contact
partner to general outgroup (Pettigrew, 2008; Vezzali et al., in press) and that because of
its effect on group membership salience, negative contact may have stronger potential to
generalise attitudes (Paolini et al., 2010). To our knowledge, the present research is the first
to test the potential generalisation of attitudes from both positive and negative contact
within the same study. Therefore, our analysis presents a clearer picture of the unique por-
tion of variance in attitudes explained by contact of either positive or negative valence. The
results do not replicate the generalisation of positive contact (Pettigrew, 2008), but do pro-
vide support for the generalisation of negative contact (Vezzali et al., in press). Therefore,
the current findings are consistent with Paolini et al.’s (2010) conclusion that negative con-
tact is more enduring than positive contact.
The present research additionally supports the contention that contact with a subgroup
can generalise to predict prejudice to a superordinate group via prejudice towards the sub-
group. Arguably, CHRs constitute a subgroup of an older adult superordinate group. In
professional–public contact situations such as those between CWs and CHRs, or between
the police and the public, it would be reasonable for professionals to assume the contact
partner is a special case. Professionals could perceive these individuals either as sub-types
of the larger category (e.g. older people with dementia, illegal immigrants) or as
completely separate categories (people with dementia versus people without dementia,
criminals versus the general public). In further support of this hypothesis, Vezzali et al.
(in press) demonstrated an indirect effect of negative contact with immigrant survivors
of a natural disaster to the wider group of immigrants (superordinate group) via attitudes

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
78 L. Drury et al.

towards the immigrant survivors (subgroup). Future research should test if contact with in-
dividuals explicitly categorised as belonging to a subgroup predicts attitudes towards the
superordinate group via attitudes towards the subgroup.

Generalisation of blatant and subtle prejudice

Although we found no significant evidence for generalisation from positive and negative
contact to blatant prejudice, the present evidence yielded the novel findings that negative
contact may generalise in terms of subtle prejudice in the form of the denial of humanness.
This finding is consistent with the idea that generalisation of contact effects may depend
upon the type of prejudice under consideration, specifically that negative contact, albeit less
frequent, may have a deeper impact on certain forms of prejudice (Barlow et al., 2012; Graf
et al., 2014). Furthermore, it suggests that an additional reason for the durability of negative
contact (Paolini et al. 2010) could be its impact on subtle forms of prejudice.

Applied implications
The generalisation of negative attitudes arising from negative contact with older people is
particularly important in the social care context. CWs are a group of adults who have
higher than average levels of contact with older people and may well be a conduit through
which other young adults learn about older adults (CWs provide indirect or ‘extended’
contact experiences for other young adults). Moreover, when CWs have negative contact,
there is clearly a risk that it will generalise to elevate their subtle prejudice towards other
older adults in general.
Although we did not find support for the hypothesis that positive contact experiences
would be associated with lower prejudice, we are aware that the small sample size may
have been insufficient to detect such relationships. More research is needed to improve
confidence in conclusions about the effects of positive contact in this context. At present,
however, the evidence only permits the conclusion that the benefits of positive contact with
CHRs may not spread to older people in general, whereas the disadvantages of negative
contact appear to do so.
This is the first empirical research to measure CWs’ denial of humanness to CHRs and
older adults, and provides some explanation of why CWs may dehumanise to different de-
grees. The findings reinforce qualitative evidence that CHRs may be vulnerable to
dehumanising behaviour (Berdes, 1987; Cayton, 2006; Fiveash, 1998). It has been sug-
gested that dehumanisation facilitates medical decisions and reduces staff stress (Lammers
& Stapel, 2011) and is therefore functional (Vaes & Muratore, 2013), but the present study
suggests, for the first time, some wider damaging effects of dehumanisation. Our findings
show that when negative contact stimulates the denial of humanness to CHRs, this subtle
negative attitude can also generalise to other older adults. This suggests that although
dehumanisation may aid medical staff by facilitating disengagement when making difficult
decisions relating to end of life care of older patients, it may permeate to affect their atti-
tudes towards older adults in the wider community that are in good health. Perhaps, the re-
lationship between contact and dehumanisation observed by Vaes and Muratore (2013) did
not reflect a functional reaction but rather that much of the contact is negative. Thus, rather
than accepting dehumanisation as an inevitable functional reaction to contact in health and
social care contexts, efforts could be made to reduce the negative aspects of the contact and
other sources of stress arising from the contact.

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
 Negative intergroup contact generalisation 79

The findings also suggest that CWs’ ageism towards CHRs (Bonnie & Wallace, 2003) is
related to negative relationships experienced between CWs and CHRs within care homes.
Future research should investigate the specific features of contact that make the experience
negative in these contexts. This would facilitate the design of interventions to reduce age-
ism by targeting the particular types of encounter that are most likely to be negative within
CWs’ daily work schedules. This research also offers insight into how far reaching the ef-
fects of care work could be for ageism in society. It is important that detrimental effects
produced by negative relationships within health and social care settings are fully under-
stood and addressed in order to attenuate their effects on attitudes towards older adults
more generally.

Limitations and future research

Like the majority of studies of intergroup contact, the ability to make strong causal infer-
ences from the present data is restricted because the data are correlational. However, the
research is grounded in well-developed theory that is supported (in other domains of con-
tact) by plenty of experimental and longitudinal evidence (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011). Be-
cause of the low pay and long working hours of CWs, and perhaps the sensitive nature of
the research topic, acquiring access to large samples is challenging in this area. Despite
these limitations, confidence in the meaningfulness of the present evidence is bolstered
by the fact that the measures are internally reliable, and that relationships among variables
are consistent with those observed in the wider intergroup contact literature. However, we
recognise that the relationships among variables revealed in this study merit further inves-
tigation with larger samples, longitudinal designs and across varied health and social care
contexts. Future research should also explore boundary conditions for the generalisation of
contact effects on ageism towards older people more widely. For example, the degree to
which CWs perceive a status imbalance between themselves and CHRs should be exam-
ined. The effects of positive contact are attenuated by unequal group status (Allport,
1954; González & Brown, 2003; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), but research is yet to examine
how group status interacts with the generalisation of negative contact.
A limitation of this study was that it measured the denial of desirable, but not undesir-
able, human traits (Haslam & Bain, 2007). Research measuring both trait types would fa-
cilitate consistency and comparison with the wider dehumanisation literature (for a review
see Haslam & Loughnan, 2014). For the wider literature on intergroup contact, it would be
useful to test other instances of generalisation of subgroup contact to superordinate atti-
tudes with other outgroups, for example in the case of ethnicity, sexuality and other
stigmatised groups. In particular, it would be interesting to know whether generalisation
depends on particular links or similarities between groups (e.g. across dependent or
paternalised groups but not between dependent and competitive/non-paternalised groups
[cf. Abrams, Houston, Van de Vyver, & Vasiljevic, 2015]) and whether generalisation is
moderated by the amount of threat or anxiety aroused by different groups. This is particu-
larly important when the subgroup confirms negative aspects of the superordinate stereo-
type to a greater degree than the wider outgroup (e.g. immigrant prisoners versus
immigrants in general). Additionally, the degree to which the subgroups are sub-typed
or treated as a distinct category from the superordinate group may affect outcomes. Argu-
ably, generalisation may occur more readily if the contact partner is sub-typed than if
treated as a completely independent category.

© 2016 The Authors. Journal of Community & J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 27: 65–82 (2017)
Applied Social Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/casp
80 L. Drury et al.

Summary
For the first time, this research provides evidence for the generalisation of the denial of hu-
manness stemming from negative contact. Generalisation was not apparent in relation to
positive contact and when measuring blatant attitudes as the outcome, showing not only
the independent and distinct nature of negative and positive contact, but also the disparity
between explicit and more subtle expressions of prejudice. Beyond these theoretical con-
tributions, CWs’ attitudes may affect institutional ageism because of the widespread use
of health and social care and a lack of meaningful intergenerational contact. More widely,
this research highlights the potential for negative contact in occupational settings to gener-
alise to wider outgroups in the form of subtle dehumanising attitudes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council and Age UK
[grant number ES/J500148/1 to the first author].

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