Promoting Positive Intergroup Relations Toward Sexual and Gender Minorities: The Role of Vicarious Contact and Religiosity

Despite positive shifts in public attitudes, prejudice against sexual orientation and gender diverse (SOGD) persons endures. These attitudes often arise from religious threats and minimal intergroup contact. In light of this, the current study examined the effectiveness of a text-based vicarious contact intervention for improving attitudinal, affective, and behavioral relations toward SOGD persons. Cisgender heterosexual participants (N = 191) were categorized as religious or nonreligious based on self-reported identification and randomly allocated to a vicarious intergroup contact (reading text about a cooperative goal direct interaction between SOGD and cisgender heterosexual persons) or intragroup interaction. As predicted, higher religiously self-identified participants reported significantly more negative intergroup outcomes toward SOGD persons. Vicarious intergroup contact significantly increased willingness to engage in direct contact with SOGD persons but did not reduce prejudice or intergroup anxiety. No interaction effect of vicarious contact and religious identification was found on outcome variables. Overall, this study lays the foundation for future prejudice reduction efforts targeting religiosity and supports vicarious intergroup contact as a strategy to enhance willingness to engage in contact with SOGD minorities.