[1] Expectations that interactions with foreign members of outgroups will result in an aversive experience is believed to be the cause of intergroup anxiety, with an affected individual being anxious or unsure about a number of issues.
These can be grouped as follows: The amount of anxiety one feels in such an instance is hypothesized to vary according to a variety of personal factors.
However, anxiety can also manifest itself in the opposite manner: anxious ingroup members may act overly friendly in an attempt to avoid seeming ignorant or prejudiced.
Such unnatural behavior can add to the distrust felt by ingroup and outgroup members, causing the interaction to be negatively perceived.
The fact that these interactions have been initiated by the group inspiring anxiety has been shown to cause ingroup members to perceive them as overly negative.
[16] This finding would suggest that anxiety is better hidden than its sufferer thinks, and that the subsequent negative perception of the interaction is purely mental and can be overcome.
[3] Imagination exercises alone have proven not only to be an accurate predictor of future behavior, but also to reduce intergroup anxiety without any actual contact.
[17] This finding holds steady even when study participants are especially high in anxiety[18] or ideologically intolerant of people from the other outgroup.
Interactions including a possibility of friendship have been shown to be more effective,[7][20] particularly when that potential is reinforced by mutual self-disclosure, a characteristic usually absent in strained intergroup contact.
[23] Most importantly, it is critical that these reduction exercises take place in a society that fundamentally supports peaceful and successful intergroup contact.