Call for abstracts for a special issue to appear in the British Journal of Social Psychology
Abstract Submission Deadline: March 31, 2025
Full Manuscript Submission Deadline: September 30, 2025

Although extensive research within the intergroup contact theory framework has demonstrated the beneficial impact of positive contact on attitudes (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011), it has also revealed that positive contact may occur less frequently than psychologists have presumed, even under favourable conditions (the ‘leading the horse to water’ problem, see Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011). In fact, contact avoidance and re-segregation are common outcomes (Bettencourt et al., 2019; Kauff et al., 2020; Paolini et al., 2021, 2024).

This Special Issue aims to advance our understanding of how, when and why individuals engage in contact-seeking or contact-avoidance. That is, instead of treating contact as a predictor of change in social dynamics, we treat it as the outcome of psychological, relational, and contextual processes that remain under-specified but are of considerable theoretical and applied significance.

The Special Issue welcomes both empirical and theoretical submissions that:

(1) Explore the cultural, relational, political, environmental, and psychological factors that shape individuals’ willingness (or capacity) to seek out or avoid intergroup contact across varying levels of analysis;
(2) Systematically map the routine nature or frequency of everyday patterns of contact and segregation or identify contexts of rupture where individuals are suddenly brought into new relations of proximity, intimacy and interaction;
(3) Produce novel data on the nature of contact-seeking and avoidance across varying levels of analysis or social and cultural contexts, thereby generating new empirical insights;
(4) Investigate people’s perceptions of actual or desired levels of segregation, contact-seeking, and contact-avoidance in society;
(5) Apply, refine or extend new methods for exploring contact-seeking and avoidance over time;
(6) Elaborate theoretical explanations for contact seeking and avoidance;
(7) Evaluate the success of interventions designed to address related problems, e.g., the ‘resegregation’ of educational, employment, residential or social spaces;
(8) Develop interdisciplinary approaches by integrating social psychological work with work rooted in companion disciplines such as environmental and political psychology, sociology, political science, demography, or geography.

Given that most work on contact and segregation has been conducted in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) contexts, we especially welcome research conducted in other cultural settings (e.g., the global South) or that recovers the voices or practices of underrepresented communities. We also welcome research using a wide variety of methodological and analytic approaches, qualitative and quantitative, including research employing methods developed in other disciplines, providing they directly address the Special Issue’s core themes. We would also, of course, require all submissions to conform to BJSP guidelines in terms of research ethics and Open Science.

For the full call, please see https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/20448309/call-for-papers/si-2025-000044

Guest Editors:
John Dixon, Stefania Paolini, Anna Stefaniak, Chloe Bracegirdle, Patrick Kotzur, and Maria-Therese Friehs

Keywords: Contact seeking, contact avoidance, segregation, contact hypothesis, prejudice, discrimination

Submission Guidelines/Instructions

Authors who wish to participate are encouraged to send in a concise article abstract (not exceeding 500 words) by March 31, 2025 so that the Guest Editors can advise whether the work would fit with the scope of the special issue. The abstract should be emailed to the journal editorial assistant bjso@wiley.com with the subject “Contact seeking, contact avoidance and the enduring challenge of segregation”. If authors are not able to send an abstract by that deadline, they are still welcome to submit a full manuscript by September 30, 2025.

Timeline:
Abstract Submission Deadline: March 31, 2025
Full Manuscript Submission Deadline: September 30, 2025
Acceptance Deadline: March, 30, 2026