Intergroup contact is an established pathway to improve intergroup relations. Research has long focused on mainly positive intergroup contact and its capability to improve intergroup relations. Yet, if members of different groups meet, they will not only make positive, but possibly also negative intergroup contact experiences. Recent research considering both positive as well as negative intergroup contact has raised concerns about potentially stronger effects of negative compared to positive contact. These new insights and the increasing awareness of potentially detrimental effects of contact could lead to doubts about whether it is always sensible to bring individuals from different groups together. Our article first updates the latest review on joint effects of positive and negative intergroup contact. We find that there is no clear tendency for either positive or negative intergroup contact to yield stronger effects on intergroup relations, and we portray factors that might influence these effects. Such factors—for example an individual's prior experiences—could play a crucial role in defining the relevance of negative contact in everyday settings. We continue by answering calls to increase a more qualitative understanding of what kinds of experiences are seen to be intergroup contact, and where intergroup contact in everyday life is experienced from a lay understanding, with new qualitative data from British White and British Asian individuals. Our results demonstrate that positive as well as negative contact is often rather casual and happens in public spaces and at work. Interventions explicitly addressing these spaces may help to reach more people. We also demonstrate that positive contact is much more frequent than negative contact. This finding is confirmed in the third section, which reviews the relative frequency of positive and negative intergroup contact. Last but not least, we discuss the implications of our review for practitioners and researchers alike.

中文翻译：

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负面接触会破坏改善团体间关系的企图吗？加深对负面接触的理解及其对群体间接触研究和干预的后果

群体间的联系是改善群体间关系的既定途径。长期以来，研究主要集中在积极的群体间接触及其改善群体间关系的能力上。但是，如果不同小组的成员见面，他们不仅会产生积极的，而且可能还会产生负面的小组间接触经历。最近有关正向和负向群体间接触的研究提出了与正向接触相比，负向可能具有更强影响的担忧。这些新的见解以及对接触潜在有害影响的日益增长的认识可能会导致人们怀疑，将来自不同群体的个体聚集在一起是否总是明智的。我们的文章首先更新了有关正负团体间联系的联合影响的最新评论。我们发现，没有积极的或消极的群体间接触对群体间关系产生更强影响的明显趋势，并且我们描绘了可能影响这些影响的因素。这些因素（例如，个人的先前经历）可能在定义日常环境中负面联系的相关性方面起着至关重要的作用。我们将继续接听电话，以更加定性的方式理解来自英国白人和英国亚裔个人的新的定性数据，以了解哪些类型的经历是群体间的接触，以及日常生活中哪些群体间的接触是从外行的理解中获得的。我们的研究结果表明，积极和消极的接触通常是偶然的，并且发生在公共场所和工作场所。明确解决这些问题的干预措施可能有助于吸引更多的人。我们还证明，积极接触比消极接触要频繁得多。第三部分证实了这一发现，该部分回顾了积极的和消极的群体间接触的相对频率。最后但并非最不重要的一点是，我们讨论了我们的评论对从业人员和研究人员的意义。