Intergroup Attitudes and Interpersonal Relationships in Online Contact between Groups in Conflict

ABSTRACT This exploratory study examined changes in intergroup attitudes and interpersonal relationships between members of virtual groups from diverse and conflicting backgrounds in an intergroup contact program. Seventy-six students took part in a collaborative online course during one academic year connecting Jews and Arabs in Israel. They marked their perceived distance to their team members at the beginning and end of the course using the novel Team Circles tool. Initially both Arab and Jewish students felt closer to their in-group team members. However, perceived distances decreased significantly over time with Arab students reporting equal perceived distances to their in-group and out-group members after the course. The results from the Team Circles test were combined with repeated measures of intergroup attitudes using Implicit Association Tests. Although no significant changes in intergroup attitudes were observed, greater reduction in perceived distances to out-group team members resulted in lower levels of prejudice toward the out-group as a whole after the course.