Virtually meeting “The Intouchables”: Online contact, sense of community, and prejudice toward people with a disability

Abstract

Prejudice toward people with a disability remains an unchallenged global problem. This cross-sectional study investigated online intergroup contact involving university students without disability (N = 107), participating within a social program aimed at fostering the social inclusion of people with a disability. We tested two separate path models, where positive and negative online contact were the predictors (controlling for positive and negative offline contact), sense of community was the mediator, while social distance from, and attitudes toward people with disability, were the outcome variables. Results showed that greater positive (but not negative) online contact was associated with more positive evaluations and lower social distance toward people with a disability, via heightened sense of community.