Does intimacy counteract or amplify the detrimental effects of negative intergroup contact on attitudes?

Abstract

Past research is limited by a focus on intimacy in positive intergroup contact. This study tested whether intergroup intimacy counteracts or amplifies the detrimental effects of negative intergroup contact on outgroup attitudes. Participants from five Central European countries (N = 1,276) described their intergroup contact with, and attitudes towards, citizens from neighboring nations. We coded the contact descriptions for presence (vs. absence) of intimacy (intimate, casual, or formal relationships) and contact valence (negative, positive, or ambivalent). The results indicated that those who reported negative contact in the context of intimate relationships displayed more positive outgroup attitudes than those who reported negative contact in the context of nonintimate relationships. This protective function of intimacy extended to instances of ambivalent contact. Our findings speak of the additive value of intimacy and positivity for intergroup relations; they underscore the benefits of intimacy as part of not only positive but also negative intergroup contact.

Keywords

ambivalent intergroup contact interpersonal relationships intimacy intimate intergroup relationships negative intergroup contact outgroup attitudes

Positive intergroup contact is an effective way to improve intergroup relations, especially when that contact is intimate, as in the case of intergroup friendships (for reviews, see Davies, Tropp, Aron, Pettigrew, & Wright, 2011; Pettigrew, 1998; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006; Turner, Hewstone, Voci, Paolini, & Christ, 2007). To date, however, intergroup intimacy has been investigated exclusively in relation to positivity: Intimate relationships with outgroup members, as instances of positive intergroup contact, are associated with positive intergroup attitudes (Herek & Capitanio, 1996; Levin, van Laar, & Sidanius, 2003; Pettigrew, 1997; Powers & Ellison, 1995; Vonofakou, Hewstone, & Voci, 2007). The role of intimacy in negative exchanges with outgroup members has received comparatively little attention (but see Page-Gould, 2012). Hence, it remains unclear whether, to what extent, and in what direction intimacy affects the impact of negative intergroup contact on intergroup attitudes.

In the present research, we investigated whether intergroup intimacy influences the way in which people respond to negative experiences in intergroup exchanges. Turner and Feddes (2011) recommended that researchers integrate intergroup and interpersonal theories when considering intimate intergroup relations. We followed their advice when deriving our predictions for the effects of intimacy in relation to negative contact: We expected that intimacy would either counteract the detrimental effects of negative intergroup contact—based on preliminary evidence from the intergroup literature—or amplify these detrimental effects, based on the interpersonal literature.

Intergroup Intimacy May Counteract the Detrimental Effects of Negative Contact

There is some limited and indirect evidence that intimacy can reduce or counteract the detrimental effects of negative intergroup relations. Intergroup negativity in most contact literature has been traditionally indexed by troubled intergroup settings at a macro level, rather than by negative intergroup exchanges at the individual level. For example, in the postconflict setting of Northern Ireland, people with outgroup friends have been found to report lower levels of intergroup anxiety, higher levels of trust, and more positive outgroup attitudes than people without outgroup friends, despite their shared experience of negative intergroup relations at the societal level (e.g., Hewstone, Cairns, Voci, Hamberger, & Niens, 2006; Paolini, Hewstone, Cairns, & Voci, 2004). Similarly, intergroup friendships have been shown to reduce barriers of racial division that persist in postapartheid South Africa (Swart, Hewstone, Christ, & Voci, 2010, 2011). Hence, intergroup intimacy seems to counteract the deleterious impact of macrolevel intergroup negativity that characterizes tense intergroup settings.

To the best of our knowledge, there is only one study that has investigated intimacy in the context of negative intergroup experiences at the individual level. Page-Gould (2012) found that individuals with low-quality or no cross-group friends actively avoided outgroup members on the day following interpersonal conflict with an outgroup member; in contrast, those with close outgroup friends did not. Therefore, in Page-Gould’s study, the intimacy emanating from having outgroup friends appeared to shield against the negativity in interactions with individual outgroup members that would otherwise damage future intergroup relations. In a similar vein, there is evidence that positive, extensive, and intimate intergroup contact in the past mutes the category salience that is enhanced by negative intergroup contact (Paolini et al., 2014), thus limiting negative contact’s ability to damage attitudes towards the outgroup as whole (Aberson & Gaffney, 2009; Dhont & van Hiel, 2009). The role of intergroup intimacy in the link between negative contact experienced at the individual level and outgroup attitudes remains therefore to be fully established.

Intergroup Intimacy May Amplify the Detrimental Effects of Negative Contact

In contrast to the intergroup literature, evidence from the interpersonal literature suggests that intimacy may enhance or amplify the adverse effects of negativity because intimacy, as compared to lack of intimacy, increases the psychological significance and impact of negative experiences. Intimate relationships involve a great degree of trust and vulnerability that—when violated by negative experiences—can lead to more negative affective and behavioral responses than when negativity is experienced in nonintimate relationships (Jones & Burdette, 1994; Rempel, Holmes, & Zanna, 1985). This exacerbated negativity in intimate (vs. nonintimate) intergroup relationships may then generalize onto group-level responses, manifesting in more negative attitudes of those with intimate (vs. nonintimate) intergroup relationships.

Intergroup romantic relationships (e.g., interracial marriages) have been found to be less satisfying and more prone to dissolution than relationships with partners coming from the same group (Gurung & Duong, 1999). Partners in intergroup intimate relationships are perceived to invest less and be less committed than intragroup partners and, importantly, enjoy less approval of the relationship from their friends and families (Paterson, Turner, & Conner, 2015). This may be another key factor through which negativity impacts intergroup intimate relationships more than nonintimate intergroup relationships: Intimate intergroup relationships come with a host of significant others also from the outgroup—for example, intimate outgroup partners’ families and friends. Hence, experiences of disapproval from this larger network of outgroup members can reverberate and possibly further compromise attitudes toward the outgroup as a whole in a way not possible in nonintimate relations.

All in all, from this angle, intimacy could pose a higher risk of deteriorating outgroup attitudes after negative intergroup experiences due to the higher significance of intimate relationships and through associated opportunities of negative contact with other outgroup members. Based on this interpersonal evidence, one can expect that the negativity experienced with intimate outgroup members will adversely affect those particular relationships and, assuming some generalization from particular outgroup members to the outgroup as a whole, ultimately have a negative ripple effect on outgroup attitudes. Conversely, negativity experienced with nonintimate outgroup members should not impact outgroup attitudes to such extent because people do not give comparable weight to nonintimate relationships. As a result, negativity may not be as influential in nonintimate intergroup relationships as it is in intimate intergroup relationships.

In summary, the intergroup and interpersonal literatures suggest contrasting predictions for the direction of the effect of intergroup intimacy on the relation between negative contact and outgroup attitudes: The intergroup research implies that intimacy with outgroup members will counteract or reduce the deleterious effect of negative contact on outgroup attitudes, otherwise detected in nonintimate intergroup relationships. In contrast, extrapolations from the interpersonal research suggest that intimacy will enhance the adverse effects of negative contact on outgroup attitudes.

Overview of the Present Research

The primary focus of our study was to examine the role of intimacy in negative intergroup contact. Drawing from the intergroup and interpersonal literatures, we aimed to contrast two opposing predictions, that (a) intimacy would counteract the detrimental effects of negativity on outgroup attitudes and that (b) intimacy would enhance the detrimental effects of negativity on outgroup attitudes. For this, we compared the outgroup attitudes of individuals who reported instances of intimate intergroup relationships with the attitudes of individuals who reported nonintimate intergroup relationships in the context of contact experiences appraised to be negative, positive, or negative and positive—that is, ambivalent.

We assessed appraisals of intergroup intimacy and contact valence employing an experience-sampling approach to shortcut some of the limitations of traditional self-reports of overall contact quality or positive/negative contact (see Graf, Paolini, & Rubin, 2014, for a broader discussion in the context of these and similar data): We asked participants to freely describe instances of past intergroup contact and then indicate their outgroup attitudes. When explicit negative or positive appraisals of past contact experiences were spontaneously provided by our respondents in their contact descriptions, independent coders would consensually recognize that and treat them as subjectively and intersubjectively valid appraisals of contact negativity and/or positivity. This approach led us to code these contact descriptions as either negative, positive, or ambivalent, based on whether they included exclusive reference to negativity, positivity, or a mixture of negativity and positivity. Furthermore, we coded for three types of relationships with outgroup members varying in degrees of intimacy—intimate, casual, and formal relationships—from the premise that nonintimate relationships can take distinct forms, ranging from unstructured exchanges during casual contact to highly structured formal contact as present in the workplace (see Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006).

This design combining negative, positive, and ambivalent contact in the context of varied degrees of intergroup intimacy allowed us to first check for the well-established effect of intergroup intimacy in the context of contact positivity— that is, a beneficial effect of intimacy (vs. lack of intimacy) on outgroup attitudes among positive-only contact participants. This design also afforded us to test for a main effect of contact valence, whereby outgroup attitudes would be more negative among those reporting negative contact than among those reporting positive contact, and ambivalent participants would most likely fall somewhere between. More importantly for the issues at stake here, this design allowed us to test the two contrasting hypotheses for the role of intergroup intimacy in negative intergroup contact from two slightly distinct angles: among those (a) reporting exclusively negative contact, and among those (b) reporting both negative and positive contact—that is, ambivalent contact participants.

Figures 1a and 1b provide a graphical representation of the established benefits of intergroup intimacy in the context of positive-only contact (see identical pattern in the graphs’ far right sections) and of a main effect of contact valence on outgroup attitudes, whereby attitudes are less positive for negative-only contact than ambivalent or positive-only contact. These graphs also articulate the contrasting expectations for negative contact participants (see graphs’ far left boxed sections) and ambivalent contact participants (see graphs’ middle boxed sections). Figure 1a displays the prediction that intergroup intimacy counteracts the detrimental effects of negativity and Figure 1b the prediction that intergroup intimacy amplifies such detrimental effects among both negative-only and ambivalent participants.

Figures 1a and 1b.

Predicted results for the contact valence–outgroup attitudes links as a function of intergroup intimacy, reflecting contrasting hypotheses from the intergroup and interpersonal literatures. Intimate intergroup relationships counteract the detrimental effect of negative intergroup contact on attitudes (1a: left pane); intimate intergroup relationships amplify the detrimental effect of negative intergroup contact on attitudes (1b: right pane).

If intergroup intimacy counteracts the detrimental effects of negative intergroup contact on attitudes, as the intergroup contact literature suggests, among both negative-only and ambivalent participants, then the main effect of contact valence should be complemented by a main effect of contact intimacy (see Figure 1a): Outgroup attitudes should be more positive under intimate than nonintimate relationships, somewhat irrespective of contact valence. If intergroup intimacy, on the other hand, amplifies the effects of negative intergroup contact on attitudes, as the interpersonal literature suggests, the main effect of contact valence should this time be qualified by an interaction between intergroup intimacy and contact valence (see Figure 1b): Intimacy should still make outgroup attitudes better among positive-only contact participants; however, it should make outgroup attitudes worse (relative to nonintimacy) among negative-only and ambivalent contact participants.

We tested this set of predictions carrying out secondary data analysis on a dataset collected in the border regions of five Central European countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, and Slovakia; see Graf et al., 2014¹). Cross-border contact in Central Europe is free from overt conflict but not free from subtler intergroup tensions—this applies to most contemporary multicultural societies in Europe and North America (Salomon, 2006). We reasoned that the ample and varied opportunities for daily intergroup contact in border regions would offer an ideal setting to detect wide variability in our focal variables—intergroup intimacy, contact valence, and outgroup attitudes—and thus for an incisive test of the role of intergroup intimacy in valenced contact’s effects.

Method

Participants

We recruited a sample of 1,276 university students (M_age = 23.98, SD = 5.64; 78% women) from Austria (n = 146), the Czech Republic (n = 691), Germany (n = 132), Poland (n = 134), and Slovakia (n = 173) via university email systems as part of a study on attitudes toward socially relevant issues.

Procedure and Materials

In an online questionnaire, participants provided their demographic details and freely described their contact experiences with people from a neighboring country following the instruction: “Can you recall any experiences you had with an [outgroup] person during your visit abroad or in your home country? How did the [outgroup] member behave in that particular situation? How did you behave?” Later in the questionnaire, participants indicated their outgroup attitudes toward the target neighboring country [the outgroup] on a feeling thermometer (Haddock, Zanna, & Esses, 1993). The thermometer used 30-point increments with the anchors cold and warm, with higher values indicating more positive outgroup attitudes. Participants from the four countries neighboring to the Czech Republic described their experiences with, and attitudes toward, Czechs, while Czech participants described their experiences with, and attitudes toward, one of the four neighboring nations depending on the geographical closeness of the given country (e.g., participants from the eastern part of the Czech Republic reported on Slovaks, etc.). All participants described their experiences in their native language. We analyzed participants’ descriptions of intergroup contact through content analysis (Neuendorf, 2002).

Five independent judges used a codebook to classify contact descriptions along contact valence and contact intimacy. Two judges proficient in both languages spoken in a given border region (e.g., Czech and German) always coded participants’ descriptions from both sides of one border region (e.g., from Czech participants coming from the western part of the Czech Republic bordering Germany and from German participants coming from the eastern part of Germany bordering the Czech Republic). They coded for whether contact experiences included positive appraisals of contact partners (present/absent; e.g., “The family I stayed with was doing its best to prepare an entertaining program for me”) and negative appraisals of contact partners (present/absent; e.g., “Their behavior has completely changed our previous positive views about them”). To account for cases in which positivity and negativity coexisted in the same description of participants’ past intergroup contact (e.g., “Our neighbors’ German nieces were friendly and fun. However, it seemed to me that they sometimes behaved inappropriately, exploiting the fact that nobody could understand them”), we recoded the two separate variables for contact positivity and negativity in a single contact valence variable with three values: (a) negative-only contact, (b) negative and positive contact, or ambivalent contact; and (c) positive-only contact.

Coders also classified each contact description for reference to degrees of intimacy. Intimate contact (present/absent) included experiences with outgroup romantic partners, family members, or friends. Casual contact (present/absent) included fleeting encounters at public places in which the roles of the interaction partners were not formally defined, and did not develop into closer or prolonged relationships (e.g., visitors at a concert, foreigners asking for directions in the street). Formal contact (present/absent) included experiences with shop assistants, waiters, tourist guides, teachers or classmates in situations in which the behavior of the interaction partners was determined by their official role. We then recoded these three variables into a single variable of contact intimacy. When participants referred to relationships of varied intimacy within the same description (e.g., intimate and casual), we coded their contact description at the most intimate level mentioned (i.e., intimate over casual or formal, and formal over casual). The interrater reliability analysis indicated good agreement for all of the coded categories in all five countries (all Cohen’s kappas ≥ .72, Mdn = .83; Banerjee, Capozzoli, McSweeney, & Sinha, 1999); discrepancies between coders were resolved through discussion.

Contact intimacy and contact valence were entered as fixed factors into a 3 x 3 between-subjects ANOVA with outgroup attitudes as the dependent variable in order to test the contrasting predictions plotted in Figures 1a and 1b. To check for any cross-border setting specificity, we entered participants’ nationality and the border region they lived in as a third factor in two follow-up ANOVAs.

Results

Frequencies for contact valence and contact intimacy are shown in Table 1. Overall, 141 participants appraised their contact partners in a negative way, 154 participants appraised their contact partners in an ambivalent way, and 521 participants appraised their contact partners in a positive way. 199 participants described intimate relationships with outgroup members, 300 casual, and 317 formal relationships.

Table 1.

Frequencies and outgroup attitudes as a function of contact valence and contact intimacy.

Contact valence	Negative contact			Ambivalent contact			Positive contact			Total
Contact intimacy	M	SD	n	M	SD	n	M	SD	n	M	SD	n
Intimate relationships	16.55	4.82	20	17.81	5.84	42	19.80	5.53	137	19.06^a	5.62	199
Casual relationships	14.12	5.64	68	16.65	6.03	49	17.70	6.31	183	16.72^b	6.27	300
Formal relationships	13.21	6.49	53	15.13	6.35	63	17.87	6.20	201	16.54^b	6.52	317
Total	14.12^a	5.93	141	16.34^b	6.17	154	18.32^c	6.12	521	17.22	6.30	816

Note. Outgroup attitudes were measured on a feeling thermometer that ranged from 0 to 30 degrees, anchored as cold and warm (i.e., higher values indicated more positive attitudes). Superscripts along the total row and column indicate statistical differences in outgroup attitudes as a function of contact valence (negative, ambivalent, positive) and contact intimacy (intimate, casual, formal) at the p ≤ .01 level.

The key effects for contact valence and contact intimacy on outgroup attitudes are displayed in Figure 2. The 3 x 3 between-subjects ANOVA returned significant main effects of contact valence, F(2, 807) = 20.45, p < .001, η_p² = .05, and contact intimacy, F(2, 807) = 7.21, p < .001, η_p² = .02, and a nonsignificant interaction between contact valence and contact intimacy, F(4, 807) = 0.57, p = .681, η_p² = .00.

Figure 2.

Obtained results for the contact valence–outgroup attitudes links as a function of intergroup intimacy.

The pattern of means for outgroup attitudes behind these effects reflected the well-established benefits of intimacy in positive-only contact experiences (see Figure 2’s far right section). More importantly, this pattern was consistent with expectations that intimacy would counteract the effect of negative contact among both negative-only and ambivalent participants (cf. the boxed sections of Figure 2 and Figure 1a). It was inconsistent with expectations that contact intimacy would amplify the detrimental effects of negative intergroup contact among negative-only and ambivalent participants (cf. the boxed sections of Figures 2 and 1b).

With respect to the main effects, as expected, participants who appraised their outgroup contact partners in a positive-only way held significantly more positive outgroup attitudes (M = 18.32, SD = 6.12) than participants who appraised their outgroup contact partners in a negative-only (M = 14.12, SD = 5.93) or ambivalent way (M = 16.34, SD = 6.17). Participants who appraised their outgroup contact partners in an ambivalent way held significantly better attitudes than those who appraised their outgroup contact partners only negatively.² With respect to the main effect of contact intimacy, participants who reported having intimate intergroup relationships reported significantly better outgroup attitudes (M = 19.06, SD = 5.62) than participants who reported either casual (M = 16.72, SD = 6.27) or formal intergroup contact (M = 16.54, SD = 6.52). Outgroup attitudes of participants who reported casual or formal intergroup contact did not significantly differ. When participants’ nationality was entered as an additional factor into the ANOVA, we did not find a three-way Nationality x Contact Valence x Contact Intimacy interaction, F(15, 772) = 0.74, p = .746, η_p² = .01. In addition, the three-way Border Region x Contact Valence x Contact Intimacy interaction was also nonsignificant, F(16, 771) = 1.00, p = .451, η_p² = .02, confirming that our main results were not context-specific.

Overall, our results indicate that contact intimacy is always associated with better outgroup attitudes independently of varied contact valences. Hence, contact valence and contact intimacy have additive effects on outgroup attitudes, with intimate relationships and positive intergroup experiences independently contributing to more positive outgroup attitudes. This additive pattern we detected for contact valence and contact intimacy held across the five cross-border settings.

Discussion

Prior research has investigated the role of intimacy in relation to positive intergroup contact; the present research extended this line of work by considering the role of intimacy in relation to negative intergroup contact. We found that intimacy was able to counteract the detrimental effect of negative intergroup contact: Those who reported negative contact and intimate intergroup relationships held better outgroup attitudes than those who reported negative contact and nonintimate intergroup relationships. The fact that intimacy can counteract the effect of negative contact is in line with past intergroup contact research showing that friendship with outgroup members—a special case of intimate intergroup relationships—can mute the detrimental effects of macrolevel negativity in hostile intergroup settings (e.g., “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland and postapartheid South Africa; Hewstone et al., 2006; Paolini et al., 2004; Swart et al., 2010, 2011). It is also consistent with the protective action of intimacy in the context of individual-level negativity in daily intergroup interactions (Page-Gould, 2012; Paolini et al., 2014).

The design of our study comprised not only negative contact but also positive and ambivalent contact. A novel aspect of our research is that it opened a window on ambivalent intergroup contact, a type of valenced experience largely neglected in past studies. We found that positivity and intimacy functioned as two independent protective factors against negativity present in exclusively negative, as well as in ambivalent experiences. Ambivalent contact was associated with better outgroup attitudes compared to negative-only contact. This pattern is in line with previous studies suggesting that negative contact is primarily problematic in situations where there is a lack of positive contact (Árnadóttir, Lolliot, Brown, & Hewstone, 2018; Paolini et al., 2014; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011). At the same time, however, participants who experienced both positivity and negativity with outgroup members had worse attitudes than participants who reported solely positive intergroup contact. Thus, despite their beneficial effects, positive experiences could not fully extinguish the detrimental effects of negative contact. In the context of ambivalent contact, intergroup intimacy represents an important independent mechanism that can counteract negativity and protect intergroup relations from deteriorating after negative experiences.

One could argue that negativity as a single event is unlikely to outweigh or even color the positivity carried by (most times prolonged) intimate relationships, at least until it leads to dissolution of the intimate relationship. However, our data showed that negativity in the backdrop of intimate intergroup relationships was associated with less positive outgroup attitudes than positivity in the backdrop of intimate relationships. This finding indicates that negativity can indeed—at least partially—disrupt the overall benefits of intergroup intimacy. This, however, does not necessarily imply that negativity experienced with intimate outgroup members will inevitably lead to the breakup of the intimate bond. People deal with challenges in their interactions in many different ways other than relationship dissolution (Drigotas & Rusbult, 1992; McCullough et al., 1998; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2005). In our qualitative data, we found that a way of dealing with negativity in intimate intergroup relationships involved sometimes attributing loved ones’ negativity to their negatively stereotyped group memberships (vs. personal attributes; e.g., a Czech partner and father of the participant’s child not working hard enough “because” of his Czech laziness). These reappraising coping strategies can result in worse outgroup attitudes without necessarily ending potentially problematic but still important intimate intergroup relationships.

Negative experiences with outgroup members can manifest in many different forms, mostly depending on the nature of the intergroup relations in the given context. Negativity can present as mildly as avoidance or ignoring and as extremely as instances of violent physical attack. These different forms of negativity can certainly have quite distinct effects on outgroup attitudes. The border regions of the five Central European countries represent intergroup settings that lack open intergroup conflict despite existing subtler tensions. Hence, the instances of negative intergroup contact in our data represented comparably mild events in terms of their aversiveness and impact on outgroup attitudes (e.g., being treated differently than natives in shops abroad, being ignored by foreign students during student exchanges, rivalry between fans of competing international sport teams). Although such mild instances of negativity are not comparable with violent attacks in settings of acute intergroup conflict, it is important to study their effects due to their prevalence in most contemporary multicultural societies (Graf et al., 2014; Hayward, Tropp, Hornsey, & Barlow, 2017; Salomon, 2006).

Limitations and Future Directions

The rich open-ended descriptions of contact experiences that we analyzed in this research reveal a complexity of intergroup interactions that is masked in more common and more molar frequency estimates of valenced contact. Participants were not required to appraise the valence of their contact experiences, therefore we gauged more spontaneous (and in our view more ecologically valid) expressions of valence. We had comparatively fewer descriptions of negative (vs. positive) contact. This unequal prevalence mirrors similar data (e.g., Barlow et al., 2012; Hayward et al., 2017; Pettigrew, 2008; for a more detailed discussion, see Graf & Paolini, 2017). We recommend that future researchers use close-ended questions of intimacy and negativity in order to yield a larger pool of responses and test the invariance of these promising, yet still preliminary findings in other settings.

In our research, we employed a cross-sectional design that limited causal inferences. As in other correlational studies on contact and prejudice, we suspect that the link between these two variables is bi-directional. Consequently, people endorsing more prejudice are also likely to remember and describe negative events—a countereffect to the tendency to comply with the antiprejudice norm. In future studies, researchers may wish to use longitudinal designs (e.g., using a diary method) to address the causal effect of different degrees of intimacy in relation to negative and positive contact on intergroup outcomes. Using a longitudinal design, we will be able to better predict under which conditions and in which settings the sense of intimacy developed with outgroup members protects against the detrimental effects of negative intergroup contact.

Our research provides preliminary but optimistic evidence that intimate intergroup relationships can counteract the negativity experienced with outgroup members—making intimacy an important factor not only in improving intergroup relations in the context of positive contact but also an important factor in protecting individuals from the worsening of intergroup relations following negative contact.

Footnotes

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant (17-14387S) from the Czech Science Foundation, by RVO: 68081740 from the Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences, and by an Australian Research Council grant awarded to the second and third authors (DP0770704). The manuscript is based on discussions during a research visit by Sylvie Graf to the University of Newcastle, Australia, sponsored by an Award for International Collaboration from the Czech Academy of Sciences and by the University of Newcastle’s Emerging Research Leadership Program awarded to Stefania Paolini and Mark Rubin.

ORCID iD

Sylvie Graf

Notes

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