Jozefien de Leersnyder (KU Leuven)
How well people’s patterns of emotions are similar to one another – and thus how much they ‘fit’ – has been found to be a function of interpersonal contact and to be associated with better relationship outcomes in both dyads and (work)teams. In the current talk, I present evidence for this bidirectional link in an intergroup context. Specifically, I will present large scale and longitudinal data showing how minority youth’s interethnic contact positively predicts emotional fit with the majority group one year later, while at the same time, minorities’ emotional fit predicts their number of majority friends the next year. I complement these insights with findings from a social network analysis and with preliminary data from a real-life interaction study in which ethnic minority and majority members interact to establish common ground, and in so doing, also establish emotional fit with one another.