Concept and background
The contact hypothesis proposed by Gordon Allport (1954) held that contact under the right conditions reduces prejudice. Pettigrew (1998) identified the processes through which contact works as learning about the outgroup, changing behavior, generating affective ties and ingroup reappraisal. Mixing with an outgroup and learning its perspectives and customs shakes the assumption that one's own group's ways are natural and uniquely right. This movement away from an ingroup-centered, or provincial, view is called deprovincialization.
Empirical evidence
Pettigrew (1997) surveyed about 3,800 people in France, Britain, the Netherlands and Germany and found that those with outgroup friends were less prejudiced even toward other minorities they had not contacted, and somewhat less proud of their national culture. The meta-analysis by Pettigrew and Tropp (2006) likewise confirmed that contact effects generalize beyond the contact partner to the whole group and to other situations. Verkuyten, Thijs and Bekhuis (2010) showed in data from Dutch adolescents that contact with Muslims led to ingroup reappraisal, lowering the importance of Dutch identity, which in turn affected attitudes toward other outgroups.
Relation to the secondary transfer effect
Deprovincialization is one of the main explanations for the secondary transfer effect, in which contact with one outgroup spreads to attitudes toward other outgroups. Pettigrew (2009) and Tausch and colleagues (2010) tested this generalization process with data from Cyprus, Northern Ireland, the United States and elsewhere, and found that deprovincialization mediates part of the effect. Critics note, however, that its effects vary in size across studies and that people who experience weakened ingroup attachment as a threat may react against it.
FAQ
- What is deprovincialization in simple terms?
- The process of realizing, by spending time with people from other groups, that your own group's way is not the only right one.
- Why does it matter?
- When an ingroup-centered view loosens, prejudice can decline even toward other groups you have never met.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Addison-Wesley. The classic that launched the contact hypothesis.
- Pettigrew, T. F. (1997). Generalized intergroup contact effects on prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(2), 173–185. The European survey study that first tested deprovincialization.
- Pettigrew, T. F. (1998). Intergroup contact theory. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 65–85. Review placing deprovincialization among contact's processes.
- Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751–783. Meta-analysis showing contact effects generalize.
- Pettigrew, T. F. (2009). Secondary transfer effect of contact: Do intergroup contact effects spread to noncontacted outgroups? Social Psychology, 40(2), 55–65. Links deprovincialization to secondary transfer.
- Tausch, N., Hewstone, M., Kenworthy, J. B., Psaltis, C., Schmid, K., Popan, J. R., Cairns, E., & Hughes, J. (2010). Secondary transfer effects of intergroup contact: Alternative accounts and underlying processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(2), 282–302. Cross-national tests of generalization processes.
- Verkuyten, M., Thijs, J., & Bekhuis, H. (2010). Intergroup contact and ingroup reappraisal: Examining the deprovincialization thesis. Social Psychology Quarterly, 73(4), 398–416. Direct Dutch test of the deprovincialization thesis.