Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of prior actual contact experience and imagined contact experience on the explicit and implicit attitudes of Chinese college students. In experiment 1, the Implicit Association Test was used to assess the implicit attitudes of Chinese college students towards own (Chinese) and other (African and European) races. In experiment 2, Chinese college students with different prior contact experiences were instructed to imagine positive, neutral and negative contact. Then their implicit attitudes and explicit attitudes towards the Africans were assessed through the Single Category Implicit Association Test and explicit questionnaire respectively. The results showed that compared with other races, Chinese college students have more positive attitude towards their own race. Further, they have more positive attitude toward Europeans than Africans. And imagined contact with other race can improve individual's implicit attitude towards other race. In the case of less prior contact experience, imagined contact can improve individual's explicit attitude to other race.

Key words: prior contact, imagined contact, experience, explicit attitudes, implicit attitudes