Description
Analysis of the mechanisms within intergroup friendships has found self-disclosure plays a powerful role in promoting positive outgroup attitudes. Trust, empathy, and anxiety reduction all mediate the relationship between self-disclosure and positive outgroup attitudes. We expanded on previous self-disclosure research to include all these mediators in an entire model, and an additional mediator: race-related self-disclosure. Additionally, we included both majority —White—and minority—Latino/a—perspectives. The study used a two-group quasi-experimental design, accessible as an online survey, completed by 252 Latino/a and White/Caucasian San Diego State University students with respective outgroup friends. They were recruited through the psychology department participant pool. We predicted that (H1) as self-disclosure within a friendship increases, positive outgroup attitudes also increase. We posited that the relationship between self-disclosure and outgroup attitudes would be mediated by (H2) race-related disclosure, (H3) trust (including vulnerability), (H4) empathy, and (H5) anxiety reduction. We also hypothesized that (H2) race-related self-disclosure and (H3) trust would be associated with a larger increase in positive outgroup attitudes for Latino/as, and that (H4) empathy and (H5) anxiety reduction would be associated with a larger increase in positive outgroup attitudes for Whites/Caucasians. Structural equation modeling confirmed that (H1) as self-disclosure within a friendship increases, positive outgroup attitudes also increase. Additionally it provided evidence that (H3) trust and (H4) empathy mediate this relationship, while (H2) all three factors of race-related self-disclosure and (H5) anxiety reduction do not. We ran structural equation models separately for Whites/Caucasians and Latino/as to analyze the effects of race on the given mediators. (H3) Trust remained as a mediator for both racial groups. However, (H4) empathy only mediated the relationship between self-disclosure and outgroup attitudes for Latino/as. Quality of race-related self-disclosure mediated this relationship for Latino/as, however quality of race-related self-disclosure was negatively associated with positive outgroup attitudes. The implications for these findings and future directions are discussed.
