Reducing Prejudice by "Reading a Book"

“All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players.” —Act II, Scene VII, As You Like It, by William Shakespeare.

Since the early days of psychology, researchers have been interested in how stereotypes and prejudice form, and how they can be reduced or eliminated (Katz & Braly, 1933, LaPierre, 1934, Lippmann, 1922). One of the earliest approaches to prejudice reduction was quite elegant and intuitive in its simplicity. It was the idea that, since prejudice was borne out of ignorance and fear – due to two groups not knowing much about each other because they had little contact with each other – we could reduce prejudice by putting people into a situation or setting. Once there, people would naturally start talking to each other, learn they are more similar than different, and make friends with members of the other group. These new positive feelings were presumed to then generalize toward all members of that person’s outgroup, and as a result, the person wouldn’t feel prejudice or hold stereotypes about that group anymore.

This came to be known as the “Contact Hypothesis” (Allport, 1954; Williams, 1947). Research on the contact hypothesis yielded mixed results however. Sometimes people reported more positive feelings toward the outgroup, but equally often, other study participants felt more negatively toward the outgroup (Allport, 1954, Stephan, 1985; Wilner, Walkley, & Cook, 1955). Obviously, that was not an acceptable outcome. But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. Anyone who has been in a U.S. high school cafeteria knows that simply putting different groups in a big room is not a sufficient condition for them to get to know each other and break down their long-held stereotypes. Tests of the contact hypothesis started showing results that it required up to 13 different conditions to be present in order for contact to reduce prejudice (Stephan, 1985). In a reformulation of the theory, Pettigrew and Tropp (2006, 2011; Pettigrew, 2021) suggest that we don’t need all these special conditions for contact theory to help reduce or eliminate prejudice. Just a few conditions. One of the most important is to create situations where the two persons have the opportunity for more intimate, personal, direct contact.

Toward that end, a recent paper by Bagci and Blazhenkova (2020) discussed the results of the implementation of a prejudice-reduction program called the Human Library (HL) (Human Library Organization, 2019). This is a non-profit community event whereby the “Library” is made up of visitors (participants) "readers", and the "books" are other participants who are members of stigmatized groups. During the event, "readers" select a "book" that they would like to meet and talk to (in 20-40 minute sessions), with the goal of each participant learning more about each other in a safe, positive, environment. The HL event sets up the parameters and norms for interaction: friendliness, tolerance, equality, positivity, diversity, organization (and oversight by the HL organization and other authorities). Moreover, the atmosphere promotes self-disclosure, intimacy, and reduced inter-group anxiety, in a way that promotes a high-quality experience for both the “reader” and the “book” participants (Bagci & Blazhenkova, 2020). Results of four different intervention events with participants in Turkey showed that HL events significantly improved several measures of outgroup attitudes. Interestingly, but maybe not surprisingly, most of the attitude shift came in people who were the most prejudiced before participating. That makes sense because if you were mostly egalitarian to begin with, the intervention would only cause your attitudes to shift slightly more egalitarian. Sort of a “preaching to the choir” effect (a.k.a. “ceiling effect” in science lingo). Other measures showed that this effect was indeed due primarily to the intimate intergroup interaction (the one-on-one discussions). Finally, research showed that HL participation also generalized to greater positive attitudes toward other stigmatized groups with whom the “reader” wouldn’t normally interact.

There are a myriad of ways that researchers have proposed to reduce prejudice (Nelson & Olson, 2024). One of the most simple ideas was, “Let’s just put the groups together, and they’ll naturally start talking to each other and know each other on an individual level (and not stereotype each other).” It turns out that some specific conditions need to be present before that happens. When it comes to intergroup contact and Contact Theory, the most important of these conditions is that the members of each group talk to each other on a direct, one-on-one basis. The Human Library intervention appears to be a successful method of reducing prejudice, and even generalizing positive intergroup attitudes to other outgroups.

William Shakespeare said we are all actors on the stage of life, playing our roles. Prejudice arises when we operate out of fear of the unknown. If we don’t take the time to meet a person on a meaningful one-on-one basis, we can’t hope to get past our roles (defenses), fear, prejudices and stereotypes. A promising way forward in prejudice reduction is to become patrons of the “library” and start “reading books.” We each have a fascinating story to tell the world. Making the effort to talk to each other directly, one on one, will have positive effects: we’ll reduce (or even eliminate) our stereotypes and prejudices.

In that spirit, let me change Shakespeare’s famous quote:

All the world is a library. We are all books, each with our story to tell. Let us strive to be “well-read.”