Flattering compliments and savage insults – The influence of vicarious intergroup contact on minority (outgroup) support considering empathy as a mediating mechanism

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Cover of Volume: SCM Studies in Communication and Media Volume 15 (2026), Issue 1
Open Access Full access

SCM Studies in Communication and Media

Volume 15 (2026), Issue 1

Authors:
Publisher
Nomos, Baden-Baden
Copyright Year
2026
ISSN-Online
2192-4007
ISSN-Print
2192-4007

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Open Access Full access

Volume 15 (2026), Issue 1

Flattering compliments and savage insults – The influence of vicarious intergroup contact on minority (outgroup) support considering empathy as a mediating mechanism

Authors:
ISSN-Print
2192-4007
ISSN-Online
2192-4007
Preview:

Minority groups in a society, such as national, ethnic, or religious minorities, often depend on the support of other groups, so-called outgroup support, to assert their interests and bring about social change. Social media environments provide a wide range of options for vicarious intergroup contact, which is assumed to be a low-threshold way to promote outgroup support. This study focuses on intergroup contact between the societal majority group of heterosexual individuals as the ingroup and the minority group of homosexual individuals as the outgroup, as well as intergroup contact between the societal majority group of White individuals as the ingroup and the minority group of people of color (PoC) as the outgroup. Both homosexual individuals and PoC represent minority groups that face systematic discrimination and social disadvantage in our society, requiring support and interventions. We investigate the effects of observed positive and negative intergroup contact in an online environment on different types of outgroup support, as well as the role of empathy and perspective-taking towards the outgroup as potential affective and cognitive mediators. We conducted an online experiment (N = 477), using a stratified demographic sample of the German population. Results show that observed intergroup contact in comment sections on social media does not influence empathy or different forms of outgroup support. Instead, empathy and perspective-taking influence outgroup support independent of the observed intergroup contact.

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