For the love of music: Changing Whites’ stereotypes of Asians with mediated intergroup musical contact

Abstract

This study examined whether stereotypes of warmth and competence can be changed through exposure to outgroup musical behavior. We hypothesized that exposure to an outgroup musician would result in more perceived outgroup warmth, reduced intergroup anxiety, and more pro-diversity attitudes relative to nonmusical outgroup exposure, and that these effects would be mediated by target warmth, synchronization, empathy, and trust. The hypotheses were tested in the context of anti-Asian prejudice early in the COVID19 pandemic. We found substantial support for our mediator predictions: experimental exposure to an Asian musician yielded more positive warmth and synchronization perceptions, for instance, than exposure to an Asian nonmusician. Those perceptions were subsequently associated with more positive perceptions of Asians as a group.