Effects of Imagined Contact under Optimal Conditions on Outgroup Perception

Intergroup contact is a social psychological tool utilized to develop positive relationships between culturally different groups. Allport’s four optimal contact conditions, which are equality of groups, common goals, cooperation, and institutional or authority support have been shown to be effective in increasing contact between groups. In segregated regions contact between groups may not be a viable option, hence the need for indirect contact techniques such as imagined contact. The current research aimed to apply the imagined contact technique to the Cyprus context. For this reason, a new imagined contact task variant (named ‘optimal imagined contact’) was designed that included Allport's optimal conditions to measure its effectiveness at improving outgroup attitudes, reducing intergroup anxiety and enhancing action tendencies. Additionally, actual behavior was also measured in order to build on prior limited research showing the link between imagined contact and real behavior. A total of 156 (69 Male and 87 Female; Mean Age: 21.09, SD: 2.30) participants were randomly assigned to one of the three imagined contact conditions: (i) optimal; (ii) standard; (iii) no-contact control. Results showed that participants reported more anxiety in the no contact control condition compared to both the optimal and standard imagined contact conditions but there was no significant difference between the standard and optimal imagined contact conditions on the remaining measures. In the measurement of actual behavior, people who were in the optimal imagined contact condition and standard imagined contact conditions were more likely to meet with a confederate they assumed to be a Greek Cypriot than those in the no contact control condition. Based on the present results, necessary prejudice reduction interventions were discussed in order to increase the contact between the groups in Cyprus. Keywords: Imagined contact, Optimal conditions, Outgroup attitude, Actual behavior, Cyprus.