It's Not a Phobia: Reducing Transnegativity Using Imagined Intergroup Contact

Georgia Southern University

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Electronic Theses and Dissertations Jack N. Averitt College of Graduate Studies

Spring 2023

It's Not a Phobia: Reducing Transnegativity Using

Imagined Intergroup Contact

Rachel Cook

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Contact" (2023).

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IT’S NOT A PHOBIA: REDUCING TRANSNEGATIVITY USING IMAGINED

INTERGROUP CONTACT

RACHEL COOK

(Under the Direction of Amy Hackney)

ABSTRACT

The present study evaluated the efficacy of a novel imagined intergroup contact procedure in

reducing feelings of transnegativity held by cisgender individuals. The intervention, based on the

Fast Friends Procedure (Aron et al., 1997), has participants interact with a fictional transgender

person who answers questions about himself; participants then write a free-response answer to

the question for themselves. The current hypotheses were that the imagined intergroup contact

procedure would (1) reduce feelings of transnegativity, (2) reduce feelings of contact

apprehension toward transgender people, and (3) increase feelings of self-other overlap between

cisgender people and a transgender target. In Study 1, a group of primarily White, cisgender

female college students (n = 44) completed the imagined contact procedure to see if it increased

feelings of self-other overlap; a demographically similar group was evaluated for Study 2 (n =

55) to see if it increased feelings of self-other overlap while decreasing feelings of contact

apprehension and self-reported transnegative beliefs. While Study 1 saw an increase of feelings

in self-other overlap between cisgender people and the transgender target (Cohen’s d = .59),

Study 2 saw no impact of the imagined intergroup contact procedure on any of the target

measures (all ps > .05). This may be due to small sample size and inadequate power or due to the

imagined intergroup contact scenario using only part of the Fast Friends Procedure (Aron et al.,

1997); rather than using all twenty-four questions, it only sampled four of them. If the findings

are accurate, it means that the novel imagined intergroup contact procedure, as used in the

current study, is an ineffective way to reduce transnegativity among participants Researchers

must continue exploring new venues of prejudice reduction to best protect transgender

individuals.

INDEX WORDS: Transnegativity, Imagined intergroup contact, Fast friends procedure,

Prejudice reduction

IT’S NOT A PHOBIA: REDUCING TRANSNEGATIVITY USING IMAGINED

INTERGROUP CONTACT

RACHEL COOK

B.S., Kennesaw State University, 2019

A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF SCIENCE

COLLEGE OF BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

RACHEL COOK

IT’S NOT A PHOBIA: REDUCING TRANSNEGATIVITY USING IMAGINED

INTERGROUP CONTACT

RACHEL COOK

Major Professor: Amy Hackney

Committee: C. Thresa Yancey

Rebekah Estevez

Electronic Version Approved:

May 2023

DEDICATION

The dedication to this thesis is split in two parts:

To Blake Kinnett, who gave me a home when I had none without question or hesitation,

for as long as I needed, and who has offered to do that many times over.

To Jessica Fisher, who has shown me time and again that doing work within and without

the trappings of academia is possible, meaningful, and fulfilling.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to take this time to thank the team of people who have made this thesis

possible. First and foremost, thank you to Dr. Amy Hackney, without whom this thesis would

have never come to pass. Your guidance has been invaluable. Thank you to Dr. C. Thresa

Yancey for your attention to detail; my work is better for it. Thank you to Dr. Rebekah Estevez

for bringing energy and optimism to my thesis discussions, and for believing in the value of my

work. Thank you to Dr. Nicholas Holtzman for helping with the early mathematical foundations

of this thesis and guiding it towards validity and reliability. Thank you to Kaylee George, Jordan

Salafia, Maggie Poff, and Megan Cole, all of whom put in hours of work running participants

and whose efforts made the collection of data not only manageable, but even possible. Thank

you to the workers for the GSO Professional Development Grant and the SPSSI Clara Mayo

Grant who found this thesis to be meaningful and who helped to fund it.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

DEDICATION .................................................................................................................................2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................3

LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................................6

LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................7

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................8

Intergroup Contact Theory ....................................................................................9

The Fast Friends Procedure .................................................................................10

Imagined Intergroup Contact ..............................................................................11

Overview of the Current Investigation ................................................................11

2 STUDY 1 .................................................................................................................13

Method ................................................................................................................13

Results .................................................................................................................16

Discussion for Study 1 ........................................................................................17

3 STUDY 2 .................................................................................................................19

Method ................................................................................................................19

Results .................................................................................................................23

Discussion for Study 2 ........................................................................................24

4 GENERAL DISCUSSION ......................................................................................26

Future Directions .................................................................................................27

Conclusion ...........................................................................................................28

TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONT.)

Page

REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................30

APPENDICES

A IMAGINED INTERGROUP CONTACT PROCEDURE –

STUDY 1 EDITION ..............................................................................................43

B IMAGINED INTERGROUP CONTACT PROCEDURE –

STUDY 2 EDITION ..............................................................................................52

C CONTROL PROCEDURE – STUDY 2 EDITION ..............................................61

D COMPREHENSION CHECK ...............................................................................69

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1: Mixed-Factor ANOVA Results Using IOS Scores from Study 1 as a Criterion .............35

Table 2: Mixed-Factor ANOVA Results Using GTS Scores from Study 2 as a Criterion ............36

Table 3: Mixed-Factor ANOVA Results Using CATT Scores from Study 2 as a Criterion .........37

Table 4: Mixed-Factor ANOVA Results Using IOS Scores from Study 2 as a Criterion .............38

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1: Comparison of Marginal Means for the IOS Pre- and Post-Tests of Study 1 by

Condition............................................................................................................................39

Figure 2: Comparison of Marginal Means for the GTS Pre- and Post-Tests of Study 2 by

Condition............................................................................................................................40

Figure 3: Comparison of Marginal Means for the CATT Pre- and Post-Tests of Study 2 by

Condition............................................................................................................................41

Figure 4: Comparison of Marginal Means for the IOS Pre- and Post-Tests of Study 2 by

Condition............................................................................................................................42

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Transnegativity, or social and interpersonal-level bias against transgender individuals, is a

topic of burgeoning research interest in the psychological community. As recently as 2020, there

were 1.4 million adults in the United States of America who identified as transgender—that is,

there were 1.4 million adults who reported that their gender did not match the sex assigned to them

at birth (Conron & Goldberg, 2020). Of great concern, transgender adults are at risk of serious

mental and physical health symptoms due to individual and systemic experiences of

transnegativity, which can impact their quality of life.

The effects of transnegativity can impair both the physical and emotional security of

transgender people. Transgender people—both children and adults—are at a heightened risk of

gender-based physical, sexual, and emotional violence by peers, family, and strangers in

comparison to their cisgender counterparts, as well as experiencing more difficulties when seeking

justice for this violence (Wirtz et al., 2020). Transgender people are also at a heightened risk of

non-suicidal self-injurious behaviors and suicidal behaviors because of the stresses accrued by

belonging to a minoritized group (Staples et al., 2017). Even when taking into account traits such

as resilience, transnegativity causes significant negative health outcomes for members of the

transgender community (Meyer, 2015).

With such pressing ramifications of transnegative attitudes and behaviors, it is no wonder

that the psychological community is increasingly invested in reducing prejudicial attitudes and

actions toward transgender persons. Researchers have used pedagogical interventions (McDermott

et al., 2018), created research groups with a primary focus on advocacy for transgender people

(Hope et al., 2020), and, most notably for this study, explored the impact of intergroup contact on

transnegativity (Davies & Aron, 2016; Flores, 2015; King et al., 2009). The current research seeks

to use the foundations of intergroup contact theory to design and implement a novel imagined

intergroup contact intervention modeled after the Fast Friends procedure (Aron et al., 1997); the

ultimate goal of this intervention’s development is the reduction of transnegativity.

Intergroup Contact Theory

Intergroup contact theory is, in brief, the idea that humans’ sentiments about members of

an outgroup are predicated by the amount and quality of contact they have with members of that

group (Pettigrew, 1998). In other words, proponents of intergroup contact theory state that

inducing positive contact between members of different identity groups will induce positive

feelings toward the entire outgroup identity.

Research appears to generally support this claim. Some longitudinal research indicates the

development of friendships with outgroup members strongly predicts positive feelings of outgroup

members; results are particularly strong as the length of the friendships and the number of

interactions with the outgroup members increase (Davies & Aron, 2016). Other research identified

a similar mechanism at play in the tension between cisgender and transgender individuals;

cisgender people (that is, individuals who identify with the sex that they were designated at birth)

who report knowing more about transgender people also report fewer feelings of prejudice toward

them (Flores, 2015). There is cross-cultural support for this phenomenon. For instance, in a study

by King and colleagues (King et al., 2019), participants in Hong Kong who report higher numbers

of interactions with transgender individuals also report reduced levels of transnegativity in

comparison to their peers. The outgroup member does not even have to be real for the intergroup

contact to reduce prejudice; fictional exposure to transgender people (e.g., reading a story in which

a transgender person features heavily) can reduce feelings of transnegativity in cisgender

participants (Hoffarth & Hodson, 2018; Orellana, 2020).

A potential mediator of this phenomenon is contact anxiety—the feeling of anxiety

associated with being introduced to an individual from a new or rarely contacted outgroup

(McCullough et al., 2019; Hoffarth & Hodson, 2018). A recent study using multiple linear

regression to evaluate predictors of transnegative sentiments found that contact apprehension

toward transgender persons and measures of intergroup anxiety are stronger predictors of

transnegative beliefs than right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation

(McCullough et al., 2019).

Fast Friends Procedure

The development of friendship is an integral mechanism for the successful implementation

of intergroup contact theory; if there is not a positive component of friendship development—that

is, positive feelings of closeness between two individuals—intergroup contact theory is

unsuccessful in prejudice reduction (Pettigrew, 1998). Therefore, to optimize the prejudice

reduction effects of intergroup contact theory, it is beneficial to use a procedure intended to

experimentally induce feelings of interpersonal closeness in targeted participants. The Fast Friends

procedure (Aron et al., 1997) is a series of questions that a set of partners takes turns answering;

as the procedure continues, the intimacy of the disclosures increases This self-disclosure of

intimate information is known to reduce prejudice among different racial groups (Turner et al.,

2007).

To date, there is minimal research using the Fast Friends procedure for transgender

populations. However, one study found that heterosexual people felt reduced feelings of prejudice

toward gay men and lesbian women after engaging in a modified version of the Fast Friends

procedure (Lytle & Levy, 2015).

The traditional Fast Friends procedure is meant to be conducted between two individuals

face-to-face (Aron et al., 1997). However, because transgender people are at a heightened risk of

social and even physical violence (Wirtz et al., 2020), it is unethical to place transgender

confederates in a position which might compromise their safety. Prior research, facing similar

considerations of safety for their confederates, established a virtual Fast Friends procedure to keep

their confederates safe (Lytle & Levy, 2015). In another alternative, the current research seeks to

implement an imagined intergroup contact procedure in lieu of the traditional Fast Friends

procedure to minimize as many associated risks as possible.

Imagined Intergroup Contact

Imagined intergroup contact is a procedure in which participants imagine a generally

pleasant interaction between themselves and members of a target outgroup member (Crisp et al.,

2008). This procedure induces feelings of closeness between members of different social groups.

This form of intergroup contact has been found to reduce long-term contact anxiety toward people

with schizophrenia (Schuhl et al., 2019) and toward members of different ethnic groups (Iguarta

et al., 2018). Though the application of imagined contact to transnegativity is limited, there is

burgeoning evidence that imagined contact works in this capacity as well. People who experienced

an imagined contact procedure with a fictional transgender person reduced instances of biased

hiring practices in a simulation (Moss-Racusin & Rabasco, 2018).

Overview of the Current Investigation

The current research sought to use these foundations of intergroup contact theory to design

a novel imagined intergroup contact intervention procedure to reduce transnegative sentiments

from cisgender participants towards transgender people. The first study (Study 1) sought to

establish that a novel imagined contact procedure effectively targeted feelings of interpersonal

closeness in accordance with the prior established literature (Aron et al., 1997; Lytle & Levy,

2015). In this study, it was hypothesized that participants in the imagined contact procedure would

experience an increase in feelings of self-other overlap not experienced by the participants in the

control condition.

The second study (Study 2) sought to determine if the imagined contact procedure impacted

affective measures of transnegativity similarly to how it impacts intentions to act (Moss-Racusin

& Rabasco, 2018). In this study, it was predicted that participants in the imagined contact condition

would reduce transnegative affect and contact apprehension toward transgender people and

experience an increase in self-other overlap from pre- and post-test conditions; participants

randomly assigned to the control condition were not expected to reduce transnegativity from pre

to post-test conditions. Ultimately, this research sought to establish a novel imagined contact

procedure based on the Fast Friends procedure (Aron et al., 1997), with the goal of experimentally

producing a significant reduction in transnegative prejudice.

CHAPTER 2

STUDY 1

Method

Participants

A total of 50 students from an R2 university in the southeastern United States were

recruited for this study. Two participants who self-reported not being cisgender, one participant

who self-reported being under the age of 18 during the demographic questionnaire, two

participants who did not disclose their age on the demographic questionnaire, and one participant

who experienced a significant situational disruption while participating were eliminated from

analyses due to failure to meet inclusion criteria. This left 44 participants of approximately 19

years of age (M = 19.48, SD = 1.46). Participants were predominantly cisgender female (n = 30),

White (n = 23), and self-identified as freshmen (n = 15). Participants completed the procedure in

one session for a $17 electronic Visa gift card. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two

conditions: control (n = 21) or the imagined contact condition (n = 23).

Procedure

Participants were recruited in person at the on-campus library. The study was conducted

on a laptop provided by the experimenter. Those who agreed to participate moved to a quiet

location within the library to minimize potential disruptions. After the initial informed consent

procedure, participants answered a pre-measure of the Inclusion of the Other in the Self Scale

(IOS); then, they were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. Participants assigned to the

control condition (n = 21) were instructed to relax until a timer set for ninety seconds counted

down; the page automatically advanced after the timer finished. Participants assigned to the

imagined contact intervention (n = 23) completed an imagined intergroup contact procedure. Upon

beginning the imagined contact intervention, participants were instructed that they were going to

participate in a guided visualization exercise. They were asked to take time and answer questions

with particular focus on their sensory and emotional experiences. See Appendix A for the guided

visualization exercise.

The intervention was written in the form of a story with the option for free-response

answers in some places. Participants were introduced to a fictional transgender man and prompted

to participate in a conversation with him. This fictional character, named Elliot, was a young,

White, conventionally attractive man. This appearance is important; people whose identities

include multiple marginalized groups experience intersectional oppression—that is, oppression

that is specific to their intersecting identities. In other words, the oppression experienced by

someone who is part of multiple groups that are marginalized is unique (Steinbugler et al., 2006).

The current research sought to only examine the impact of imagined contact on the prejudice

towards transgender individuals; therefore, other visible identities were in line with those that do

not experience oppression.

The transgender man was identified by a transgender pride flag pin displayed on his

backpack in the intervention story. Participants were asked to imagine introducing themselves.

They then typed in answers to four questions from the Fast Friends Procedure (Aron et al., 1997)

such as “Before you make a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say? Why?”

and “Is there something you’ve dreamt about doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?”

The fictional transgender man also gave answers to these questions.

After their respective interventions, all participants completed the IOS once again.

Participants then completed a demographics questionnaire, were debriefed, and completed a

separate anonymized survey to receive their financial incentive for participation.

Measures

Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS). Both the control and intervention group participants’

feelings of closeness with transgender individuals were measured by a version of the Inclusion of

Other in the Self scale (IOS) created by Aron et al. (1992), modified to reference transgender

individuals. The IOS is a seven-point Likert-type scale in which participants are shown seven Venn

diagrams. In each of these Venn diagrams, one circle has an X in it and the other is labeled “You”

(meaning the viewer). These Venn diagrams show increasing increments of overlap intended to

signify feelings of closeness, such that selecting a 1 on the scale shows two circles with no overlap

and a 7 on the scale shows near-complete overlap. Participants in this study were asked: “If ‘X’

represents a transgender individual, which of the following images best represents how similar you

think you are to a transgender person?”

Comprehension check. Participants in the imagined contact condition also completed a

comprehension check upon completing the condition to ensure that they identified the fictional

target as a transgender man. They were asked two questions: “Why did Elliot have a patch on his

bag?” and “What was Elliot’s gender identity?” and given a free response option. Of the

participants who were in the imagined contact condition (n = 23), most identified the target as a

man (n = 17). A minority of them identified him explicitly as transgender in their free-response

answer (n = 6), and some others identified his gender incorrectly (n = 5). The implications of these

answers are expanded upon in the discussion of Study 1.

Demographics. Participants provided their age, racial identity, gender, and academic

classification. Because Study 1 sought to measure feelings of self-other overlap between outgroup

members, participants needed to identify as cisgender. As such, participants answered, as part of

the demographics portion, “Do you identify as the gender you were assigned at birth (are you

cisgender)?” and self-reported yes or no.

Results

To ensure that there were no differences in IOS scores at pre-test between participants in

the control group and the imagined contact condition, an independent-samples t-test of the pre-test

IOS scores by condition was conducted. The control group (n = 21) IOS pre-test scores (M = 2.14,

SD = 1.35) were not significantly different from the imagined contact group (M = 1.87, SD = 1.14),

t(42) = 0.73, p = 0.47, Cohen’s-d = 0.219. This supports the assumption that random assignment

was successfully conducted and that any difference between the two groups at post-test was a result

of the intervention as opposed to a failure of random assignment.

Next, a 2 (Contact: Imagined contact vs. control) x 2 (Test: pretest vs. posttest)) Mixed

ANOVA with repeated measures on the last factor was used to analyze the data. The results of this

ANOVA are depicted in Table 1. There was an effect of the contact condition, F(1, 42) = 145.81,

p < .01, such that participants in the imagined contact condition (M = 2.28, SEM = .26) rated

themselves as closer to a transgender person than those in the control condition (M = 2.14, SEM

= .28). There was also a main effect of test time, F(1, 42) = 6.13, p = .02, η

= 0.13, such that the

IOS post-tests (M = 2.42, SEM = .23) displayed higher levels of reported closeness than the IOS

pre-tests (M = 2.01, SEM = .19). Finally, as expected, there was a significant interaction between

contact and test time, F(1, 42) = 6.13, p = .02, η

= 0.13. A visualization of this interaction can be

seen in Figure 1. As shown, the control group did not differ in their pre- and post-test scores;

however, the imagined contact group showed a significant increase in their average Inclusion of

Other in the Self Score after experiencing the imagined contact intervention.

To further evaluate the interaction, simple-effect paired t-tests were conducted for post-

hoc analysis. These simple-effect paired samples t-tests confirmed that for those in the imagined

contact condition, pre-test scores (M = 1.87, SEM = .29) were significantly lower than post-test

scores (M = 2.70, SEM =.34), t(22) = 2.59, p = .02, Cohen’s d = .59. For participants in the control

condition, there was no difference between pre-test (M = 2.14, SEM = .30) and post-test scores (M

= 2.14, SEM = .30).

Discussion for Study 1

Results from Study 1 demonstrate that an imagined intergroup contact scenario modeled

upon Aron et al. (1997)’s Fast Friends procedure has the potential to experimentally induce

feelings of closeness between participants and a contact group—in this case, transgender

individuals. Participants who experienced imagined contact with a transgender individual reported

increased feelings of self-other overlap compared to their counterparts in the control group. This

aligns with the pattern found by Lytle and Levy (2015) when discussing heterosexual participants

reporting feelings of increased closeness with a sexual minority target after engaging in the Fast

Friends procedure. Likewise, Moss-Racusin and Rabasco (2018) found that participants in an

imagined intergroup contact intervention reported fewer intentions to engage in hiring practices

unduly discriminating against transgender applicants. The results of Study 1 suggest that imagined

intergroup contact can impact feelings of closeness between a participant and a target transgender

individual.

It is noteworthy that this result occurred even with some participants’ confusion around the

fictional transgender person’s gender identity. There are a couple of possible mechanisms to

explain this. Perhaps participants working through the feelings of apprehension regarding the

target’s gender identity in combination with the closeness procedure created feelings of self-other

overlap, even if they were ultimately unsure about the target’s gender (McCullough et al., 2019).

Alternatively, participants might have simply experienced a secondary transfer effect; they met a

fictional individual who felt positively about transgender rights and, determining that they liked

this individual, changed their opinion to align more with this new person’s (Flores, 2015). The

second study was adapted to make the gender identity of the target individual more explicit in an

attempt to minimize some of this variation in participant understanding of the target’s gender

identity. While Study 1 evaluated the impact of the imagined intergroup contact scenario on

feelings of self-other overlap, Study 2 was designed to take this further. Study 2 evaluated the

impact of the novel imagined intergroup contact scenario on inclusion of other in the self,

genderism and transphobia, and contact apprehension toward transgender individuals. The results

of Study 1 and previous findings in the literature led to a hypothesis that participants in Study 2

would experience a decrease in genderism and transphobia as well as contact apprehension, but

would the same increase in inclusion of other in the self from Study 1.

CHAPTER 3

STUDY 2

Method

Participants

A prior study by Moss-Racusin and Rabasco (2017) showed a small effect size in the

interaction effect between independent variable levels (η

= .03). Using this interaction effect size

in the program WebPower, (2022) it was determined that a minimum of 125 participants were

required to complete the study to have an appropriate level of power (1 – β ≥ .80). To counteract

attrition and withdrawal, the current research had a goal of recruiting 169 participants. However,

due to the time-sensitive nature of a thesis, participant recruitment was stopped on February 10,

2023 (with further collection continuing beyond this paper until the goal of 169 participants is

reached).

A sample of undergraduates (n = 55) was recruited on a university website which tracks

undergraduate participation in research studies and awards them extra credit in participating

courses. A total of 15 participants were excluded from analyses for failure to complete the

assignment (n = 7), recognition of the transgender actor in the imagined contact procedure (n = 3),

identifying their gender as something other than cisgender (n = 3), incorrectly identifying the

target’s status as a transgender man (n = 1), or failure to disclose their age (n = 1). After these

exclusions, a final group of participants was obtained for data analysis (n = 40). These

undergraduates were approximately 20 years of age on average (M = 19.68, SD = 2.21) and

consisted of predominantly White (n = 24), female (n = 26) freshmen (n = 19) psychology majors

(n = 12), similar to the pattern found in Study 1. Participants completed data collection at two

points. The average time between the pre- and post-tests was approximately three days (M = 3.16,

SD = 1.93).

Measures

Genderism and Transphobia Scale (GTS). Participants completed the Genderism and

Transphobia Scale (GTS), measuring their attitudes toward transgender individuals versus

cisgender individuals. The GTS is the best-known measure of prejudice towards subversive

presentation of gender (Morrison et al., 2017) and maintains strong construct validity when used

to evaluate the prejudice of non-Western populations (Macapagal, 2013). The GTS is a 32-item

questionnaire scored on a seven-point Likert scale. The Likert scale is reverse-scored so that a low

score indicates strong agreement with the item (that is, highly prejudiced beliefs) and a high score

indicates a strong disagreement with the item (that is, low prejudiced beliefs). All but four of the

32 items are reverse scored in this way. The GTS measures beliefs such as “People are either men

or women” as well as behavioral items such as “I have teased a woman because of her masculine

appearance and behavior” (Hill & Willougby, 2005). In the current research, the GTS produced a

Cronbach’s alpha of .936 at pre-test and .957 at post-test. Insufficient effort responding on the

GTS was reduced by reverse-scoring all but four of the items as well as an attention check item.

Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale (IOS). Participants completed a modified version of

the IOS (Aron et al., 1992). The IOS was measured on a seven-point Likert scale such that a seven

indicates high feelings of self-other overlap and a one indicates low feelings of self-other overlap.

Participants were asked, “If ‘X’ represents a transgender individual, which of the following images

best represents how similar you think you are to a transgender person?” (Lytle & Levy, 2015). See

Study 1 Method for full description of the IOS.

Contact Apprehension towards Transgender Individuals Scale (CATT). The final

measure of transnegativity was the CATT, pioneered by McCullough et al. (2019). The CATT is

a 14-item questionnaire. Answers are given on a five-point Likert scale such that a five indicates

high contact anxiety. Items are statements of agreement such as “It would be upsetting for me to

find out I was alone with a transgender person” and “Two transgender people holding hands or

displaying affection in public is revolting” (McCullough et al., 2019). Four of the items on the

measure are reverse-scored to reduce insufficient-effort responding. In the current research, the

CATT produced a Cronbach’s alpha of .912 at pre-test and .939 at post-test

Prejudice towards People with Mental Illness Scale (PPMI). Because the other

measures are high in face validity, the current research included two unrelated measures at both

pre- and post-test in an attempt to mitigate the effects of social desirability response. The first was

the PPMI. Answers to this measure are given on a nine-point Likert scale such that a nine indicates

high levels of prejudice towards people with mental illness. Items are statements of agreement

such as “I would find it hard to talk to someone who has a mental illness” or “People with mental

illness behave in ways that are unforeseeable” (Kenny et al., 2018). The original PPMI has four

subscales of between six and eight questions. To reduce participant fatigue while still allowing for

the usefulness of reducing social desirability, only the fear/avoidance and unpredictability

subscales were used.

Motivation to Respond Without Racial Prejudice Scale (MRWP). The second measure

included with the intent of preventing participants from predicting the hypothesis of the research

was the MRWP. This scale was modified from a similar scale crafted by Bamberg and Verkuten

(2022) measuring prejudice toward immigrants. Answers to this measure are given on a seven-

point Likert scale such that a seven indicates high levels of motivation. The first five questions of

the scale measure extrinsic motivation to respond without prejudice, and include statements of

agreement such as, “Because of today’s PC (politically correct) standards I try to appear

nonprejudiced towards Black people” (Bamberg & Verkuten, 2022). The second five questions of

the scale measure intrinsic motivation to respond without prejudice, and include statements of

agreement such as, “I attempt to act in nonprejudiced ways towards Black people because it is

personally important to me” (Bamberg & Verkuten, 2022).

Procedure

Due to the two-session nature of the study, participants were compensated both with extra

credit and with an $8 Visa gift card after the second session. Extra credit was granted through a

university-wide program where undergraduate students can participate in research studies for

credit. Sessions occurred in a lab setting on a desktop computer. During the first session,

participants completed an informed consent procedure and created an anonymized identifier so

that pre- and post-test scores could be matched. Participants then completed a pre-test of the study

measures (GTS, IOS, CATT, PPMI, and MWRP) in random order for counterbalancing effects.

During the second session, participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions.

Participants placed into the control condition completed the control procedure contained in

Appendix B. Participants assigned to the imagined contact intervention completed an imagined

contact procedure similar to that from Study 1; the modifications can be found in Appendix B. All

participants then completed the post-test measures. The GTS, IOS, and CATT were presented first,

though they appeared randomly. Afterwards, the PPMI and MWRP were presented in random

order. Thus, participants received the measures in a counterbalanced manner, but completed the

pertinent measures prior to those which are unrelated to this study. Next, participants completed

the demographic questionnaire. Participants then completed a separate survey to receive their

financial and SONA credit incentives to ensure no identifiers were present on participants’ data.

Results

To ensure that there were no differences in measures of transnegativity at pre-test between

participants in the control group and the imagined contact condition, three independent-samples t-

tests of the pre-test GTS, CATT, and IOS scores by condition were conducted. The control group

(n = 22) GTS pre-test scores (M = 2.42, SD = 0.86) were not significantly different from the

imagined contact group (n = 18) GTS pre-test scores (M = 2.13, SD = 0.85), t(38) = 1.45, p = 0.16,

Cohen’s-d = 0.34. The control group CATT pre-test scores (M = 2.10, SD = 0.56) were also not

significantly different from the imagined contact group (M = 1.90, SD = 0.72), t(38) = 1.00, p =

0.32, Cohen’s-d = 0.31. Finally, the control group IOS pre-test scores (M = 2.86, SD = 1.78) were

not significantly different from the imagined contact group (M = 2.50, SD = 1.62), t(38) = 0.67, p

= 0.51, Cohen’s-d = 0.21. These findings support the assumption that random assignment was

successfully conducted and that any difference between the two groups at post-test was a result of

the intervention as opposed to a failure of random assignment.

All data were analyzed using 2x2 (Test x Intervention) Mixed ANOVA with an α = 0.017

to reduce the Type I error rate. When analyzing the GTS, there was no main effect of test, F(1, 38)

= 0.08, p = 0.80, η

= 0.002; pre-test scores (M = 2.32, SEM = 0.14) were similar to post-test

scores (M = 2.34, SEM = 0.15). There was also no effect of intervention, F(1, 38) = 2.64, p = 0.11,

= 0.065, such that the imagined contact intervention (M = 2.10, SEM = 0.21) was similar to the

control group (M = 2.56, SEM = 0.19). There was no interaction, F(1, 38) = 1.28, p = 0.26, η

0.033. The results of this ANOVA are in Table 2; a visualization is available in Figure 2.

When analyzing the CATT, there was no main effect of test, F(1, 38) = 0.02, p = 0.88, η

= 0.001; pre-test scores (M = 2.00, SEM = 0.10) were similar to post-test scores (M = 2.01, SEM

= 0.12). There was also no effect of intervention, F(1, 38) = 1.58, p = 0.21, η

= 0.040; the

imagined contact intervention (M = 1.86, SEM = 0.17) was similar to the control group (M = 2.15,

SEM = 0.15). There was no interaction, F(1, 38) = 1.78, p = 0.19, η

= 0.045. The results of this

ANOVA are in Table 3; a visualization is available in Figure 3.

When analyzing the IOS, there was no main effect of test, F(1, 38) = 0.48, p = 0.50, η

0.012; pre-test scores (M = 2.68, SEM = 0.27) were similar to post-test scores (M = 2.74, SEM =

0.26). There was also no effect of intervention, F(1, 38) = 0.34, p = 0.56, η

= 0.009. The imagined

contact intervention (M = 2.56, SEM = 0.39) was similar to the control group (M = 2.86, SEM =

0.35). There was no interaction, F(1, 38) = 0.48, p = 0.50, η

= 0.0012. The results of this ANOVA

are in Table 4; a visualization is available in Figure 4.

Discussion

In direct contrast to the findings of Study 1 and to the research conducted by Moss-Racusin

and Rabasco (2018) and by Lytle and Levy (2015), Study 2 found no significant reduction of

transnegative prejudice following the intervention. Participants’ CATT, GTS, and IOS scores did

not change in either condition. There are several factors that could account for these findings.

A calculation by WebPower (2022) using the effect sizes found in the study run by Moss-

Racusin and Rabasco (2018) indicated that, to achieve enough power (1 – β ≥ .80), a sample size

of 125 participants was the minimum required. The results observed in this research may be due

to the low power inherent in a sample size of 41 participants, as this is less than half of the

participants required. It is possible that, after the sample size reaches 169 participants, the current

research will show significant findings.

Alternatively, it is possible that the novel intervention is simply ineffective at reducing

transnegative beliefs, reducing feelings of contact apprehension, and increasing feelings of self-

other overlap in participants. The original Fast Friends Procedure (Aron et al., 1997), upon which

this intervention is based, is comprised of a total of 24 questions meant to induce feelings of

closeness between two participants. The current study’s novel imagined intergroup contact

procedure only used four of these 24 questions. It is possible that four questions is inadequate to

induce feelings of closeness between participants. If this is the case, then it may be beneficial to

revise the imagined intergroup contact procedure to include more of the Fast Friends Procedure in

future research in order to see if this is the problem.

CHAPTER 4

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The current research sought to create a novel intervention to reduce transnegativity among

participants. While an increase in participant IOS scores were shown in Study 1, Study 2 saw no

such increase in IOS scores, nor was there a reduction in CATT and GTS scores as hypothesized.

It is possible that the non-significant findings in Study 2 were merely a result of inadequate

power; to that end, recruitment and analysis of participants in this project will continue until 169

participants are tested. If the non-significant findings are a function of inadequate power, then the

findings of this research will be useful in reducing transnegativity in the future; the current study

will further research indicating that imagined contact is useful in reducing aspects of

transnegativity (Moss-Racusin & Rabasco, 2018; Orellana et al., 2020). This would be supported

by the initial significance of Study 1’s findings. Previous research and theory suggest that, if

inclusion of other in the self is increased, that familiarity will reduce the contact apprehension that

a participant faces and further reduce transnegative thoughts (Davies & Aron, 2016; McCullough

et al., 2019). Therefore, if the increase in IOS in Study 1 is reliable, it follows that an expectation

of significance in Study 2 is reasonable.

Another possibility is that the success in the implementation of the procedure in Study 1 is

a result of social desirability and not a function of the intervention’s success. Because the IOS was

the only measure used, and it has high face validity, participants may have surmised the hypothesis

of Study 1. If this is true, then it is possible that Study 2’s findings, even after adequate power is

reached, will support that the imagined intergroup contact procedure was inadequate in reducing

feelings of transnegativity. If this is the case, it does not mean inherently that transnegativity is

unaffected by imagined intergroup contact. The Fast Friends Procedure (Aron et al., 1997), upon

which the imagined intergroup contact procedure is based, is a 24-question procedure intended to

induce in-depth conversation among participants to increase feelings of interpersonal closeness.

Because the imagined intergroup contact procedure was shortened to only four of these questions,

it is possible that there was simply inadequate time for participants to create a bond with the target

character. Indeed, Lytle and Levy (2015)’s modified Fast Friends Procedure was a similar length

to the original by Aron et al. (1997), indicating that, perhaps, the length is part of the formula for

success in this procedure. A brief overview of the written responses that participants gave seems

to support this; one participant wrote, “It’s hard to fully judge the character on an individual from

just the first interaction though so I wouldn't immediately call him a friend here,” indicating that

the session was simply not long or comprehensive enough for them to create a feeling of friendship

with Elliot’s character.

The last noteworthy possibility is that there is something functionally different about

participants in Study 1 in comparison to Study 2. The Study 2 pre-test scores for the IOS (M =

2.71, SEM = 0.27) were similar to the scores of the Study 1 IOS post-tests (M = 2.42, SEM = .23);

this could be a function of error or could be an indicator of some qualitative difference between

the two sample groups. Because the groups were recruited in different ways, it is possible that

participants in Study 2 were already so low in transnegativity that the intervention was not effective

due to possible floor effects. If this is the case, then a theoretically stronger intervention might be

needed to find a difference among participants.

Future Directions

While the novel imagined intergroup contact intervention developed for the current

research is by no means perfect, it does open the door to many exciting uses. Because imagined

intergroup contact does not require the presence of members of an actual marginalized group, it

could be beneficial to use in reducing prejudice among communities that have very little diversity

due to location. It may be implemented in school and other publicly accessible areas of

homogenous communities which would otherwise not have access to opportunities to reduce

discrimination rates.

As promising research continues to be produced in the field of transnegativity reduction, it

is imperative to keep in mind who is impacted. As transgender people are put at heightened risk

of suicide (Staples et al., 2017) and violence (Wirtz, 2020), it is critical that researchers continue

to find realistic, meaningful ways to better the lives of the transgender community. More than that,

though, research should begin to incorporate the intersections of identities to reduce the prejudices

that individuals experience at these intersecting margins. Intersectional oppression is

fundamentally and qualitatively different than the oppression that is experienced by individuals

who only have one oppressed identity (Steinbugler, 2006); knowing this, it is important for

researchers to identify and understand the measures that combat not only aspects of prejudice

towards specific identities, but also the aspects of prejudice towards those identities’ intersections.

The work to study these intersections has already begun (Cho et al., 2013); however, as with any

task meant to address a systemic issue, it will take meaningful and intentional changes made by

researchers and theorists on all levels.

Conclusion

Though the current research did not find statistically significant results, that does not make

research into this field valueless nor meaningless. Prior research has shown the efficacy of

imagined contact procedures in reducing prejudice towards an outgroup (Iguarta et al., 2018) and

has been extended to prejudice reduction towards transgender members of an outgroup specifically

(Moss-Racusin & Rabasco, 2018). The current research may have had inadequate power to detect

an effect of the independent variable, or the intervention itself may not have been strong enough

to capture the change that it was created to invoke. In either case, the theoretical basis of this

research is sound and should continue to be explored. It is imperative that the research community

continues to work to reduce the prejudice that transgender individuals face every day. Research

efforts should continue to broaden this work to encapsulate the intersections at which transgender

identities exist. Imagined contact allows researchers a venue to explore these prejudices without

putting vulnerable populations at risk; that, if nothing else, is a worthy goal.

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Table 1

Mixed-Factor ANOVA Results Using IOS Scores from Study 1 as a Criterion

Source

Between-subjects effects

Condition

135.812

<0.001

0.764

Error (condition)

Within-subjects effects

Test

6.133

0.017

0.127

Test*condition

6.133

0.017

0.127

Error (test)

Table 2

Mixed-Factor ANOVA Results Using GTS Scores from Study 2 as a Criterion

Source

Between-subjects effects

Condition

2.64

0.11

0.065

Error (condition)

Within-subjects effects

Test

0.08

0.80

0.002

Test*condition

1.28

0.26

0.033

Error (test)

Table 3

Mixed-Factor ANOVA Results Using CATT Scores from Study 2 as a Criterion

Source

Between-subjects effects

Condition

1.60

0.21

0.040

Error (condition)

Within-subjects effects

Test

0.02

0.88

0.001

Test*condition

1.79

0.19

0.045

Error (test)

Table 4

Mixed-Factor ANOVA Results Using IOS Scores from Study 2 as a Criterion

Source

Between-subjects effects

Condition

0.34

0.56

0.009

Error (condition)

Within-subjects effects

Test

0.48

0.50

0.012

Test*condition

0.48

0.50

0.012

Error (test)

Figure 1

Comparison of Marginal Means for the IOS Pre- and Post-Tests of Study 1 by Condition

Figure 2

Comparison of Marginal Means for the GTS Pre- and Post-Tests of Study 2 by Condition

Figure 3

Comparison of Marginal Means for the CATT Pre- and Post-Tests of Study 2 by Condition

Figure 4

Comparison of Marginal Means for the IOS Pre- and Post-Tests of Study 2 by Condition

APPENDIX A

IMAGINED INTERGROUP CONTACT PROCEDURE – STUDY 1 EDITION

Instructions:

You are about to participate in a guided visualization exercise. The scenes will be told in

the format of a story. There will be opportunities for you to give free-response answers. There is

no right answer to these. The goal with this story and these free-response answers is to let you

focus on the experience; you are not being graded. The only good answer is one that you took

your time creating; there are no bad answers. Take your time when reading this exercise; focus

on the five senses (touch, sight, hearing, taste, and smell). When you give your answers, take

your time to check-in with your emotional reaction and let that inform your responses.

We would like you to take some time imagining the following scenario.

Imagine that you are a college student in your first day of classes in a new semester. You go into

one of your classes and are informed that your first assignment is a project that must be done in

assigned pairs. The instructor suggests that you become good friends with your assigned partner,

because this project will be worth a significant portion of your grade. The instructor gives you a

series of icebreaker questions to answer with your partner so that you can better know each

other.

This is your assigned partner. When he sees

you, he smiles and holds out his hand to

shake. “Hi! My name is Elliot! What’s your

name?”

What do you tell him your name is?

____________________________________

As you settle down, you notice that he has a pink, blue, and white striped patch on his backpack.

The flag is the transgender flag.

A transgender person is a person who does not

identify with the gender that they were assigned

at birth. In other words, it is someone who was

identified by doctors as one gender when they

were born, and who does not feel like that identity is correct.

The instructor puts up a question on the board and gives you a few minutes to talk to your

partners about it. The first question is: Before you make a telephone call, do you ever rehearse

what you’re going to say? Why?

Elliot laughs at this question. “I

absolutely rehearse what I’m going to

say when I make calls!” he admits. “I

get a little bit nervous. What about

you?”

What do you tell Elliot?

_______________________________

When the classroom seems to be done answering that question, the instructor calls your attention

back to the board and puts up a second question. The new question is: Is there something

you’ve dreamt about doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

Elliot says, “Honestly, I’ve always wanted to travel the

world! I haven’t had a chance yet, because of school. I’m

thinking about taking advantage of the study abroad

program to make it happen, though!” He looks excited at

the thought, and then turns his attention to you. “What

about you? What’s something you’ve wanted to do and

haven’t done?”

What do you tell him?

_______________________________________________

When it seems that everyone has finished answering the question, the instructor calls your

attention back to the board and puts up a third question. The new question is: What is your most

treasured memory?

Elliot says, “My most treasured memory is

meeting my little sister for the first time. I was

eight when she was born, and I remember

being amazed at how tiny she was. She’s been

supportive of me in all of my big life changes.

I’m really thankful for her.” He laughs. “What

about you? What’s your most treasured memory?”

What do you tell Elliot?

__________________________________

When the instructor deems that you have had enough time to discuss the question, they call your

attention to the screen. They put up a fourth question to discuss: Tell your partner something

that you like about them already.

Elliot says, “I feel like you’ve

really been listening to me this

whole time. That’s a good thing

in a project partner, I think.” He

waits for you to tell him

something that you like about

him.

What do you tell him?

_________________________________

The icebreaker is over, and the teacher calls your attention to the front one final time to dismiss

you. Elliot asks for your phone number and offers his own. He says, “Thanks for talking! Do you

want to get coffee some time?”

You agree, and head on your way.

What are your parting thoughts about Elliot and your interactions with him?

_______________________________________

APPENDIX B

IMAGINED INTERGROUP CONTACT PROCEDURE – STUDY 2 EDITION