Can Intergroup Contact “Backfire”? Direct and Indirect Secondary Transfer Effects of Majority Group Member Friendships Among Belgian Muslim Adolescents

The present study investigated secondary transfer effects (STEs) of minority-majority friendships among ethnic-cultural minorities; that is, transfer effects of having cross-group friendships with majority group members on attitudes toward other minority outgroups. Simultaneously tackling three lacunas in literature, we (1) analyzed a large dataset of adolescent Muslim minority pupils (N = 1,750, mean age = 14.84), (2) examined processes underlying primary and secondary transfer, and (3) investigated how one of Allport’s (1954) “optimal contact conditions”, i.e., authority (teacher) support, affects STEs. Overall, the results revealed little evidence for STEs, but there were two noteworthy exceptions. First, contrary to our hypotheses, a significant negative direct relationship was found between minority-majority friendships and attitudes towards two outgroups (Africans and refugees). Second, our results also revealed a significant positive indirect STE between minority-majority friendships and attitudes towards refugees, via attitudes towards the primary outgroup (Belgian majority group members). No cross-level interactions were found between cross-group friendships and school-level authority support, indicating that this “optimal condition” does not seem to facilitate STEs. Taken together, our results cast reasonable doubt on the potential of STEs to ameliorate minority-minority relations.