The following is an excerpt of the intervention methodology. For more information, please see the full text of the article on the publisher's website or through your institution's library.

Study 1

Participants Ninety-five participants (31 men, 64 women, M_age = 18.84 years, SD = 1.86) were recruited from the Introductory Psychology participant pool at the University of Toronto. [...] Thirty percent of participants identified their ethnic origin as European, 37.8% as East and South East Asian, 15.6% as South Asian, 4.4% as Middle Eastern, 3.3% as Caribbean, 2.2% as African, and 6.7% reported a variety of other ethnic origins. [...] The remaining 90 participants (31 men, 59 women, M_age = 18.76, SD_age = 1.63) were included in the dataset for the analyses.

Procedure [...] Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) imagined contact, (2) perspective-taking, or (3) control. They were told that they would be engaging in two imagery tasks followed by questionnaires assessing their impression formation of a group. For the first imagery task, they read a vignette about a depressed individual [...]. Gender of the depressed individual in the vignette was matched to the gender of the participant. They were informed that this profile had been randomly selected from a pool of many different profiles and they were instructed to form a mental image of the individual. After picturing this individual for a few minutes, participants were then given the instructions for the second imagery task, in which they had to imagine a situation. For this second imagery task participants were randomly assigned to either the imagined contact, perspective-taking, or control condition [...]. Participants assigned to the imagined contact condition were instructed to imagine interacting with the target individual they had read about in the earlier task. They were asked to imagine, for 2 min, that they had been assigned to work with the target individual on a class project. Following the imagination task, they were asked to list the interesting and unexpected things they found out about the target individual. [...] After imagining the target’s perspective for 2 min, participants were then asked to list the things that they had just imagined. Lastly, participants in the control condition were asked to spend 2 min imagining that they were walking around campus. They were then asked to list the things they saw and describe the scene. [...] After the second imagery task, participants completed a battery of measures assessing their perceptions of the target individual and also people with depression in general [...].

Measures

Liking for the target Participants’ overall liking for the target individual was measured by having them rate how much they like the target on a scale from (1) very unlikeable to (7) very likeable. They also rated how much they would look forward to meeting the target from (1) not at all to (7) very much so. [...]

Feelings toward the target To assess their affective reactions to the target, participants were presented with various emotion words and they rated the degree to which each emotion word represented their general feelings toward the target individual on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from (1) not at all to (7) very much. [...]

Stereotypic views of the target Participants’ stereotypic views of the target were measured by having them rate, on a scale of (1) not at all to (7) extremely, how much they believe the target possessed traits that are stereotypic of the mentally ill. [...]

Self-target overlap Participants completed the Inclusion of Other in the Self scale to rate the extent to which they perceive themselves to be similar to the target individual. This scale measured self-other overlap by showing participants two circles of varying degrees of overlap (seven choices) and asking them to select one that best describes their closeness to the target. [...]

Attributions about depression Participants completed an Attribution Questionnaire which measures stereotypes about people with mental illness. [...] For each factor, items were presented as statements reflecting stereotypical beliefs about depression and participants indicated how likely they thought each item was using a scale from (1) not at all likely to (7) very much likely. [...] To measure their attitudes toward the target group as a whole, participants completed an outgroup generalizability scale where they were asked to rate how they feel (e.g., cold, hostile, contempt) about individuals with depression in general on a scale of (1) not at all to (7) extremely. [...]

Intergroup anxiety To assess their feelings of anxiety about encountering a person with depression in the future, participants completed a modified version of the Intergroup Anxiety Scale. [...] Participants rated the extent to which they would feel happy, competent, relaxed and anxious [...] about meeting a person with depression in the future on a scale of (1) not at all to (7) very much so.

Depression stigma scale To assess their personal feelings toward people with depression as well as their perceptions of other people’s attitudes, participants completed the Depression Stigma Scale [...]. This measure is composed of two subscales: personal stigma and perceived stigma.

Personal stigma. Participants’ personal attitudes toward people with depression were assessed by asking them to rate how strongly they agree with nine statements that express stigmatization against depression [...] on a scale from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree.

Perceived stigma. Participants next indicated what they think most other people’s attitudes toward people with depression are by responding to nine similarly worded items [...] on the same 5-point Likert scale used for the personal stigma scale.

Study 2

Participants Participants were recruited from Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk, where participants complete online questionnaires in exchange for small monetary compensation. A total of 141 participants (52 men, 87 women) residing in the United States completed the survey. [...] In total, 113 participants (32 men, 81 women) were included in the dataset for the analyses. The majority of participants (66.4%) identified their ethnic origin as European, 11.5% as mixed/biracial, 7.1% as East and Southeast Asian, 5.3% as African, 4.4% as South Asian, and 5.3% reported a variety of other ethnic origins (e.g., Caribbean, First Nations, etc.).

Procedure [...] First, participants were told that they would be taking part in an imagination study and were then presented with the consent form and given the opportunity to consent to participate. If they consented to participate, they were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) imagined contact, (2) perspective-taking, or (3) control. They were told that they would be engaging in two imagery tasks followed by questionnaires assessing their perceptions of individuals and social groups. [...] The procedure for the two imagery tasks was similar to the instructions given in Study 1, with the following exceptions: (1) participants were asked to spend 1 min imagining their assigned situation for the second imagery task, (2) participants in the imagined contact condition imagined meeting the target on a bus, and (3) participants in the control condition imagined an outdoor scene. The first change was made because Study 1 was adapted to an online survey; we thought that participants would be exposed to more distractions than they would have been in a laboratory setting. Moreover, a meta-analysis of imagined contact showed that whether participants were asked to imagine the interaction for longer than 1 min or 2 min did not influence the efficacy of the intervention. The second and third changes were made because the study was conducted with a community sample, and, therefore, imagining meeting a target in a classroom or imagining walking on the campus would no longer be appropriate for the participants. Once they completed the second imagery task, participants completed the same measures assessing their perceptions of the target individual and also people with depression in general as in Study 1. [...] Following the dependent measures, participants completed a demographics questionnaire and two questions assessing their familiarity (Do you know anyone who has been diagnosed with depression?) and personal experience with depression (Have you ever been diagnosed with depression?). [...]