Rejected! Cognitions of rejection and intergroup anxiety as mediators of the impact of cross‐group friendships on prejudice

In a sample of White Australians ( N =273), cross‐group friendship with Aboriginal Australians was associated with reduced cognitions of rejection and intergroup anxiety, and these variables fully mediated the effect of cross‐group friendship on conversational avoidance of sensitive intergroup topics, active avoidance of the outgroup, and old‐fashioned prejudice. The novel mediator proposed here, cognitions of rejection, predicted intergroup...