Identification with local mothers is related to mothers’ attitudes towards their children’s intergroup contact: a serial mediation model

Riikonen, R, Finell, E, Seppälä, T, Paajanen, P and Stevenson, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2438-6425, 2026. Identification with local mothers is related to mothers’ attitudes towards their children’s intergroup contact: a serial mediation model. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. ISSN 0021-9029

Text 2576915_Stevenson.pdf - Post-print Full-text access embargoed until 25 February 2027. Download (654kB)

Abstract

Mothers’ intergroup attitudes and behaviour have been shown to affect their children’s intergroup relations. However, less emphasis has been placed on mothers’ attitudes towards their children’s intergroup relations and on the identity dynamics that influence these attitudes. This study aims to extend understanding of this topic by examining how mothers’ identification with other local mothers is related to their attitude towards their children’s intergroup contact. We conducted a survey study among mothers of young children with both Finnish and foreign backgrounds (N = 733). We examined a multigroup serial mediation model with intergroup contact between mothers and outgroup trust as the mediators of the relation between identification and attitude towards children’s intergroup contact. The analysis showed that neighbourhood mother identification was related to a more positive attitude towards children’s intergroup contact via more frequent and positive intergroup contact between mothers and increased outgroup trust. This result was the same for both mothers with Finnish backgrounds and mothers with foreign backgrounds. This shows that mothers’ local identities and intergroup relations with local mothers are related to how much they want their children to interact with outgroup children. This finding highlights the important possibility that positive maternal attitudes towards children’s intergroup contact can be supported locally through neighbourhood mother communities.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Creators:	Riikonen, R., Finell, E., Seppälä, T., Paajanen, P. and Stevenson, C.
Publisher:	Wiley
Date:	25 February 2026
ISSN:	0021-9029
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1111/jasp.70052 DOI 2576915 Other
Rights:	This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Riikonen, R, Finell, E, Seppälä, T, Paajanen, P and Stevenson, 2026. Identification with local mothers is related to mothers’ attitudes towards their children’s intergroup contact: a serial mediation model. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.70052. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Melissa Cornwell
Date Added:	17 Feb 2026 11:45
Last Modified:	01 Apr 2026 08:30
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/55293

Actions (login required)

Edit View

Statistics

Views

Downloads