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Participants Forty-five students (25 female, mean age = 22.42) were randomly assigned to an extended contact or control condition. [...]

Materials and procedure Participants were ushered into a small research cubicle and instructed to watch a two-minute video showing two people seated in a similar looking cubicle having a friendly interaction — one male and one female, both Caucasian, and in their early twenties. [...] Participants in the control condition watched exactly the same video, but were not told that the male interaction partner had schizophrenia. After watching the two-minute video participants were left alone to complete measures of explicit attitude and behavioral intentions toward people with schizophrenia.

Explicit attitude and behavioral intentions We assessed attitudes using 6 items on 7-point semantic differential scales indicating participants' feelings toward people with schizophrenia cold–warm, suspicious– trusting, respectful–contempt (reversed), admiration–disgust (reversed), hostile–friendly, negative–positive. We assessed behavioral intentions with 6 items used in similar research. [...]

Physiological measures and subsequent interaction We used non-specific skin conductance responses (NS-SCR) and cardiovascular interbeat interval (IBI) as physiological correlates of participants' anxiety during the different phases of the experiment (Fig. 1). Physiological responses were monitored using a MP35 system [...]/ Electrodes used to measure NSSCR and IBI were attached to the participants after the attitude and behavioral intention questionnaires. [...] Participants were first given 5 min to relax. We then monitored their physiological responses for 2 further minutes of inactivity (T1, baseline phase). [...] Participants were then left alone for 2 min (T2, anticipation phase), after which the confederate knocked, sat in a chair 90 cm from and facing the participant, and engaged the participant in a 2-minute conversation [...] After the two-minute conversation the confederate rated the positivity of the interaction on a 7-point scale (1 = Very Negative,7= Very Positive). Without the participants' knowledge, their two-minute interactions were video-recorded using a MacBook placed unobtrusively in the corner of the room. These recordings were later shown to an independent rater who was also unaware of the nature of the experiment, experimental conditions or hypotheses. As both seating distance and shoulder orientation were held constant by this experimental design, the independent rater indicated how much each participant was “maintaining eye contact”, “laughing” and “nodding” on a 7-point scale [...].