Guided by the early findings of social scientists, practitioners have long advocated for greater contact between groups to reduce prejudice and increase social cohesion. Recent work, however, suggests that intergroup contact can undermine support for social change towards greater equality, especially among disadvantaged group members. Using a large and heterogeneous dataset (12,997 individuals from 69 countries), we demonstrate that intergroup contact and support for social change towards greater equality are positively associated among members of advantaged groups (ethnic majorities and cis-heterosexuals) but negatively associated among disadvantaged groups (ethnic minorities and sexual and gender minorities). Specification-curve analysis revealed important variation in the size—and at times, direction—of correlations, depending on how contact and support for social change were measured. This allowed us to identify one type of support for change—willingness to work in solidarity— that is positively associated with intergroup contact among both advantaged and disadvantaged group members.

在社会科学家早期发现的指导下，从业者长期以来一直主张加强群体之间的联系，以减少偏见，增强社会凝聚力。然而，最近的研究表明，群体间的接触可能会破坏对社会变革的支持，以实现更大的平等，尤其是在弱势群体成员中。使用大型且异质的数据集（来自 69 个国家的 12,997 人），我们证明了群体间联系和支持社会变革以实现更大的平等与优势群体（少数民族和顺式异性恋）成员之间呈正相关，但在弱势群体中呈负相关（少数民族和性少数和性别少数）。规格曲线分析揭示了相关性大小（有时是方向）的重要变化，取决于如何衡量对社会变革的接触和支持。这使我们能够确定一种对变革的支持——愿意团结一致地工作——这与处于有利地位和处于不利地位的群体成员之间的群体间接触呈正相关。