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Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness and durability of a brief direct contact intervention in reducing prejudice among Greek Cypriot university students towards Turkish Cypriots in the divided and post-conflict context of Cyprus. The sample included 96 participants (70 females, M_age = 21.75), with 45 randomly assigned to the intervention condition. Participants were assessed across three time points. Results revealed that the intervention, relative to the control condition, produced short-term improvements in outgroup attitudes, behavioural intentions, outgroup trust, willingness for cohabitation, intergroup anxiety, and perceived similarity. Importantly, willingness for cohabitation, intergroup anxiety, and perceived similarity remained improved at the 1-month follow-up. These findings highlight the potential and limitations of brief direct intergroup contact in improving intergroup relations among young adults in conflict settings. We discuss theoretical implications and practical guidance for policy in segregated and long-entrenched conflict settings.

Keywords

conflict Cyprus direct contact intervention intergroup contact prejudice

Prejudice is a phenomenon that can be observed in every corner of the world. Its negative effects, which can be evident on an intrapersonal (Gougis, 2020), interpersonal (Poteat et al., 2015), and intergroup level (Molina et al., 2016) have been well documented throughout the years. Apart from identifying the negative consequences of prejudice, an important aspect that has been on the agenda of social psychology for at least the last few decades is prejudice reduction. This is extremely important and relevant in post-conflict contexts due to the fact that reduction of prejudice towards the outgroup enables processes of peace, reconciliation and conflict transformation to take place. Among the most effective approaches suggested for reducing prejudice is intergroup contact.

Intergroup Contact

The intergroup contact hypothesis proposed by Allport (1954), which argues that prejudice can be reduced through direct intergroup contact, is one of the most successful (Dovidio et al., 2003) and well-documented frameworks for prejudice reduction (Pettigrew et al., 2011). According to Allport, four conditions must be met for contact to be effective in prejudice reduction: equal status of the people interacting, institutional support of the interaction, common goals, and intergroup cooperation. However, as it was later shown in a meta-analysis by Pettigrew and Tropp (2006), the four conditions enhance prejudice reduction, but are not prerequisites. The meta-analysis also revealed that the positive effects of contact could be detected regardless of the geographic and socio-cultural context, since the 515 included surveys were drawn from 38 countries. In addition, intergroup contact is supported by extensive contemporary evidence (for a review, see Paluck et al., 2021; for a meta-analysis, see Hsieh et al., 2022). Nevertheless, much of the literature relies on non-experimental, cross-sectional designs with convenience samples (e.g., Endendijk, 2024; Stathi et al., 2017). This tendency also characterizes conflict settings, including Cyprus (e.g., McKeown & Psaltis, 2017; Yucel & Psaltis, 2020). Thus, observed associations may reflect reverse causation or self-selection bias, whereby individuals who are already less prejudiced opt into contact (Paluck et al., 2019).

Additionally, even in experimental studies of intergroup contact, researchers tend to overlook whether effects persist beyond the measurement taken immediately after the intervention (Paluck et al., 2021). This pattern extends to ‘light touch’ interventions, leaving the long-term durability of their effects unclear (Paluck et al., 2021). Taken together, these limitations constrain policy relevance and practical application (Paluck et al., 2019). This consideration is particularly salient in deeply divided societies and long-entrenched conflict settings (Figueiredo et al., 2025), where researchers can guide policymakers to invest in feasible, evidence-based interventions with demonstrated long-term effectiveness to advance reconciliation and conflict resolution. In this context, the current study aims to extend the intergroup contact literature and inform policymaking in deeply divided societies by evaluating the effectiveness and durability of an easy to implement contact-based intervention among youth across key reconciliation outcomes.

Intergroup Contact in Conflict-Affected Settings

Although evidence on direct intergroup contact generally shows that contact reduces prejudice, it is worth noting that most of the studies have been carried out in relatively benign settings (Al Ramiah & Hewstone, 2013; Hewstone et al., 2014; Paluck et al., 2019). One reason is that face-to-face contact in conflict-affected contexts is often not feasible (e.g., due to geographical separation), and when it does occur, it is more likely to be negative (Paolini et al., 2010). Accordingly, indirect contact approaches have been developed and adopted as alternatives in these settings (e.g., Afandiyev & Bilewicz, 2025; Paluck, 2009). Nevertheless, meta-analytic evidence suggests that direct contact typically yields larger effects than indirect approaches (e.g., Lemmer & Wagner, 2015). In conflict settings where direct contact interventions have been implemented, however, findings regarding effectiveness are mixed (Dixon et al., 2005). For example, a field experiment conducted within an amateur football league in Iraq increased context-specific behaviours among displaced Iraqi Christians interacting with Muslim teammates (e.g., voting for a Muslim to win the sportsmanship award), but produced no lasting changes in broader behaviours (e.g., attending a mixed social event) or in attitudes towards the outgroup (Mousa, 2020).

In another study carried out in post-conflict Northern Ireland, the school-based ‘Shared Education’ program yielded positive effects on outgroup attitudes, trust, and intergroup empathy, but no effects on a range of measures, including intergroup anxiety and future contact intentions, among Catholic and Protestant adolescents who shared classes (Reimer et al., 2022). In a related study in Israel and Palestine, Bruneau and Saxe (2012) compared perspective-giving and perspective-taking via brief cross-group video and text interactions. Palestinian participants showed improvements in outgroup attitudes, empathy and trust following perspective-giving, whereas Israeli participants showed improvements limited to outgroup attitudes following perspective-taking. For both groups, the attitudinal effects were not sustained one week later. Similarly, Schroeder and Risen (2016) evaluated a 3-week coexistence program for Israeli and Palestinian teenagers. Participants from both groups showed improved outgroup attitudes immediately after the intervention than before; however, this effect was not maintained at a 9-month follow-up.

A growing body of converging evidence from large-scale representative sample surveys from both communities in Cyprus suggests that the effect size of contact on prejudice is almost twice as large (see Psaltis & Wagoner, 2025) as that reported in Pettigrew and Tropp (2006), although the key challenge remains bringing more people into contact across the geographical division of the island. Still, Cyprus has a dearth of experimental evidence on prejudice reduction through contact, particularly among the younger generation born into a separated island. To date, only one study has investigated the effectiveness of a direct intergroup contact intervention: Ioannou et al. (2018). The results showed that although direct contact led to increased positive outgroup attitudes towards Turkish Cypriots at posttest, its positive effects faded a week later. Moreover, direct contact was not found to be an effective way of reducing anxiety for future contact with Turkish Cypriots.

Taken together, these studies indicate that direct contact interventions in conflict settings could yield immediate gains on key intergroup outcomes, yet their long-term effects are either mixed or understudied. Consequently, further research is needed to test both the effectiveness and durability of contact interventions across a range of prejudice-related outcomes. Such interest in conflict and change and its varieties (stable or unstable) is a characteristic of the Genetic Social Psychology framework that inspired this current research (Psaltis & Wagoner, 2025). Building on this rationale and given meta-analytic evidence for the superior effectiveness of direct contact (Lemmer & Wagner, 2015), alongside the paucity of rigorous experimental tests in Cyprus, we conducted the present study to investigate the short- and long-term effects of a brief, lab-based direct contact intervention on key reconciliation outcomes among Greek Cypriot university students towards Turkish Cypriots. This format was also selected for practical reasons, minimizing checkpoint and security constraints associated with Turkish Cypriot confederates crossing to the southern part of the island and streamlining recruitment by allowing Greek Cypriots to participate on campus without having to cross to the other side.

In addition to outgroup attitudes and intergroup anxiety, variables previously examined by Ioannou et al. (2018), we assessed behavioural intentions, outgroup trust, willingness for cohabitation, and perceived similarity, as these constructs are frequently highlighted as meaningful precursors to improved intergroup relations and reconciliation in divided and post-conflict settings (e.g., Čehajić-Clancy et al., 2023; Donno et al., 2021; Yucel & Psaltis, 2020). To our knowledge, this is the first study to experimentally test outcomes related to peaceful coexistence and the prospect of reunification of Cyprus (e.g., willingness for cohabitation) in the Greek Cypriot community. The significance of these processes is heightened in Cyprus, where the younger generation, who may be called to vote in a future referendum, has been found to be less hopeful about reunification (Hasler et al., 2023). Finally, extending Ioannou et al. (2018), we sampled both male and female participants and lengthened the follow-up interval to one month.

Intergroup Contact in Cyprus

Despite the potential of direct contact to improve intergroup relations between antagonistic groups in conflict-affected contexts, face-to-face interaction is not always part of everyday life. Indeed, in their longitudinal study (N = 1000), Psaltis and Lytras (2012) found that 32.87% of Greek Cypriots had never crossed the checkpoints, 75.48% did not speak at all with members of the other community, and 85.34% had no Turkish Cypriot friends. These findings suggest that multiple factors have provided fertile ground for the development of alienation and prejudice, conditions that now constitute barriers to reconciliation. The following factors are well documented in multiple conflict settings and, to the best of our knowledge, are also salient in Cyprus: geographic separation and restricted mobility across the divide (e.g., checkpoints, visa requirements; Schroeder & Risen, 2016), institutional segregation in schools, workplaces, and civic spaces (Reimer et al., 2022), language barriers (Perera & Khodos, 2024), personal experiences of war (Reimer et al., 2022), norms that discourage crossing and intergroup socializing (Grady et al., 2023), negative representations of the outgroup (Husnu et al., 2018), fear of negative encounters with outgroup members (Paolini et al., 2004), and feelings of intergroup mistrust (Tam et al., 2009). In addition, Cyprus exhibits a ‘double minority complex’, whereby both communities perceive themselves as minorities: Turkish Cypriots as a numerical and status minority, and Greek Cypriots as a threatened minority due to occupation and displacement (Michael, 2007).

Although the Greek Cypriot young adults who were included in the study did not experience war themselves, they are still exposed to war remnants mainly through school curriculum, history textbooks, media, and family storytelling (Avraamidou & Psaltis, 2019; Husnu et al., 2018; Papadakis, 2008). In all of the above, the Turkish Cypriots are regarded as the enemy. Another thing that should be considered is that the majority of Greek Cypriot youth have never met a Turkish Cypriot before (Dizdaroğlu, 2020). Due to the geographical division of the island, they have minimal opportunities for intercommunal contact. In addition, many are afraid or simply unwilling to cross the border for personal reasons and beliefs (Dikomitis, 2005) that are largely shaped by one-sided, state-sanctioned nationalist narratives pervasive in everyday life. Finally, non-recognition between tertiary education institutions in Cyprus further limits contact among students, although, as noted earlier, the reported potential for contact remains substantial (Psaltis & Wagoner, 2025). Therefore, it is necessary to implement youth-focused direct contact interventions that strive to reduce prejudice towards Turkish Cypriots, thereby enabling processes of peacebuilding, reconciliation, and conflict transformation.

The Case of Cyprus

The conflict goes back to the middle of the 20th century, where people began to adopt two distinct types of nationalism. On the one hand, there was Greek nationalism, which was embraced by the Greek Cypriots, and which had as its ultimate goal the unification of Cyprus with Greece. On the other hand, Turkish nationalism was widely accepted by the Turkish Cypriots, and aimed at the partition of Cyprus, a policy also known as taksim. Cyprus was declared an independent state in 1960 with the official name of Republic of Cyprus, with a population of 80% Greek Cypriots, 18% Turkish Cypriots and 2% Maronites, Armenians and Latinos (Papadakis, 2008). However, both communities considered the independence as a temporary solution (Psaltis, 2012), leading to intercommunal conflicts from 1963 to 1967, which disproportionately affected Turkish Cypriots, resulting in 25,000 people displaced and 173 missing (Bryant, 2012). In 1974, a coup orchestrated by the Greek junta and extremist Greek Cypriot nationalists aimed at unification with Greece prompted a Turkish military intervention, leading to the division of the island and the displacement of approximately 165,000 Greek Cypriots and 1,510 missing, alongside 45,000 displaced Turkish Cypriots (Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus, 2020; Makriyianni et al., 2011; Norwegian Refugee Council/Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre [NRC/IDMC], 2005). In 1983, Turkish Cypriot authorities unilaterally declared the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which to date remains recognized only by Turkey (Psaltis, 2012).

The Study

The main aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness and durability of a direct contact intervention in improving outgroup attitudes, behavioural intentions, outgroup trust, willingness for cohabitation, intergroup anxiety, and perceived similarity among Greek Cypriot university students towards Turkish Cypriots. We designed the intervention to align with Allport’s (1954) facilitating conditions, in line with recommendations for conflict-resolution contact interventions (Al Ramiah & Hewstone, 2013), although these were not directly measured: equal status (partners were introduced as peers, confederates were matched to participants on gender, age, and student status, face-to-face seating); institutional support (university laboratory setting, recruitment via class announcements, course-credit compensation for participants); common goals (joint completion of the task within timed segments); and intergroup cooperation (turn-taking self-disclosure). The intervention was also based on a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design with a control group. The delayed posttest was included to assess whether the expected positive effects of the direct contact intervention were maintained a month later. To eliminate the possibility that the positive effects yielded for reasons other than the intervention, a control group was included.

Based on the intergroup contact hypothesis and findings from prior research in conflict settings, we expected that participants in the intervention condition would report more positive attitudes, behavioural intentions, trust, willingness for cohabitation, perceived similarity, and lower anxiety towards the outgroup at posttest by comparison to pretest. We further hypothesized that these improvements would not be sustained at the delayed posttest. Finally, we predicted that participants in the control condition would show no changes in these outcomes across pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest.

Method

Participants

One-hundred and sixteen Greek Cypriot students (86 females and 30 males) participated in the pretest phase of the study, all of whom were undergraduates of various majors and years of studies (M_age = 21.49, SD_age = 3.58) at the University of Cyprus located in Nicosia. Of these 116 original respondents, 101 participated in the posttest phase and 96 participated in the delayed posttest phase. Therefore, the final sample of the study consisted of 96 participants (70 females and 26 males; M_age = 21.75, SD_age = 3.85). No exclusions were made. Participants were randomly allocated to the control (n = 51) and experimental conditions (n = 45). The recruitment of the participants was achieved through class announcements. Each participant completing all three phases of the study was rewarded with a 5% bonus on an undergraduate course. The topic of the study was said to be “Interpersonal relations and communication skills” to avoid sampling and participant bias.

An a priori power analysis was conducted using G*Power version 3 (Faul et al., 2007) to determine the required sample size for a power of 80% at α = .05, based on the effect size reported in Pettigrew and Tropp’s (2006) meta-analysis of intergroup contact (d = −0.217). This power analysis indicated a minimum sample size of 60 participants for our study design. Thus, the final sample size of 96 participants was deemed sufficient to test the study hypotheses.

Design and Data Analysis

The experimental design of the study was a 2×3 mixed ANOVA. The independent variables were Condition (control vs intervention) as the between-subjects factor and Time (pretest, posttest and delayed posttest) as the within-subjects repeated-measures factor. The dependent variables were Outgroup Attitudes, Behavioural Intentions, Outgroup Trust, Willingness for Cohabitation, Intergroup Anxiety, and Perceived Similarity.

Procedure

All questionnaires were administered in Greek and were accessed and submitted via a link emailed to participants. Participants were asked to first complete a questionnaire (pretest). Once they completed the questionnaire, they were randomly allocated to either the control or intervention condition. Two weeks later, the participants assigned to the intervention condition took part in a 10-minute experiment. After the experiment was over, they had to complete a questionnaire immediately (posttest). Participants assigned to the control condition did not receive any intervention. They just had to complete a questionnaire (posttest) around the same time as the intervention condition. Finally, all of the participants had to complete a questionnaire for a final time a month later (delayed posttest). Debriefing was done by email upon the submission of the third and final questionnaire.

Manipulation of direct contact

The direct contact intervention consisted of what was intended to be a positive interaction between a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot (outgroup member). Although Greek Cypriot participants were naive undergraduate students, outgroup members were two confederates that were hired for the purposes of the study; female participants interacted with the female confederate, while male participants interacted with the male confederate. The confederates’ characteristics matched those of the participants: gender, age, and identity (university student). Throughout all interactions the confederates acted as naive participants.

Upon arrival at the laboratory, an experimenter accompanied each Greek Cypriot participant to the testing room. Before entry, the participant was instructed to converse in English, as the interaction partner was a Turkish Cypriot. This was necessary due to the fact that neither Greek Cypriots nor Turkish Cypriots speak each other’s mother tongue. The participant was seated directly across from the confederate, who was already present. The members of the dyad were informed that they would not interact or see each other after the study and were then directed to engage in a communication task.

Specifically, the dyad was instructed to complete the Relationship Closeness Induction Task (Sedikides et al., 1999), a structured self-disclosure procedure used to establish interpersonal closeness. Conceptually, this manipulation parallels the “Fast Friends” procedure (Aron et al., 1997), which has been used in several intergroup contact experiments (e.g., Kende et al., 2017; Page-Gould et al., 2008). We used the original task instructions from Sedikides et al. (1999). After giving instructions, the experimenter exited the room and closed the door, returning at the end of each timed segment to cue the switch to the next list and to conclude the task. The task took about 9 minutes to complete and consisted of three lists of questions that guided what it seemed to be a natural conversation between two people who have just met. The first list entailed basic questions such as: “What is your first name?” and “How old are you?”. The second list consisted of more intimate questions like: “What are your hobbies?” and “If you could change one thing about yourself, what would that be?”. Finally, the third list included even more intimate questions such as: “If you could have one wish granted, what would that be?” and “What is one of your biggest fears?”. As it becomes clear, the questions became more personal and intimate as the lists progressed. The participant-confederate pair was given one minute to complete the first list, three minutes to complete the second list and five minutes to complete the third list. Within each time limit they answered as many questions as they could. The confederates’ responses to the questions were prepared in advance so that they were the same across all interactions. All of their answers were genuine apart from the one concerning the city of origin, where they were told to say that they were from Nicosia. The purpose of this was that we wanted to ensure that the confederates’ city of origin would not elicit extreme negative emotional reactions in the participants; we considered Nicosia to be the district with the most emotionally neutral load among the ones inhabited by Turkish Cypriots.

Measures

In the pretest questionnaire, apart from the questions that related to the dependent variables, a filler item was also included (measure of communication competence) to disguise the importance of intergroup relations. Items that assessed the participants’ prior contact, attitudes, behavioural intentions, trust, willingness for cohabitation, anxiety, and perceived similarity to other groups, namely Immigrants and Germans, were also included to remove the focus from the Turkish Cypriot outgroup. The measure concerning prior contact with Turkish Cypriots was used to ensure that the random allocation of the participants to the control and experimental condition was implemented properly. The posttest and delayed posttest questionnaires were identical with the pretest questionnaire, with the main difference being that they did not contain questions regarding prior contact with outgroup members. Lastly, the posttest questionnaire of the participants assigned to the intervention condition included a typicality of outgroup member measure that aimed to assess whether they perceived the person they interacted with as a typical member of the outgroup. The measures used in the present study are available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/p5st6/overview).

Prior contact

Participants indicated the quantity of positive and negative direct contact they had in the past with Turkish Cypriots. This measure was based on Islam and Hewstone’s (1993) original Quantitative Aspects of Contact Scale. The scale ranged from 1, never to 4, very often.

Outgroup attitudes

A feeling thermometer was used to evaluate the feelings of participants towards Turkish Cypriots (Converse & Presser, 1986) ranging from 0 degrees, cold/negative feelings to 100 degrees, warm/positive feelings.

Behavioural intentions

Participants reported on the three-item Approach Behavioural Tendency Scale (Turner et al., 2013) the extent to which they would want to talk to a Turkish Cypriot person they met, the extent to which they would like to spend time with that person, and the extent to which they would want to learn more about him/her (1 = not at all, 5 = very much). This measure was found to be highly reliable over the three time points (α_pretest = .93, α_posttest = .95, α_{delayed posttest} = .94).

Outgroup trust

Outgroup trust was assessed with three items that have been used in previous studies (Pagotto et al., 2013). Participants were asked to report how often they felt trust, positive expectations, and suspicion towards Turkish Cypriots (1 = never, 4 = very often). The last item was reversed coded. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient was .45 in pretest, .78 in posttest and .79 in delayed posttest. An inter-item correlation coefficient test for the pretest phase revealed that the third item was not correlated with the first (r = −.00, p = .975) and second item (r = −.05, p = .602). By dropping the third item, Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient increased to .84 in pretest, .90 in posttest and .90 in delayed posttest. Therefore, we decided to drop the third item and use the two-item outgroup trust measure.

Willingness for cohabitation

A two-item measure obtained from Yucel and Psaltis (2020) asked participants to rate their agreement on the following statements: “I feel that I can live together with Turkish Cypriots” and “I would not mind having Turkish Cypriots as neighbours”. The scale ranged from 1, absolutely disagree to 5, absolutely agree. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient was .84 in pretest, .88 in posttest and .86 in delayed posttest.

Intergroup anxiety

A six-item scale based on Stephan and Stephan’s (1985) original Intergroup Anxiety Scale was used to measure anxiety towards Turkish Cypriots. Participants were told to think of meeting a Turkish Cypriot and then reported the extent to which they would feel happy, awkward, self-conscious, relaxed, defensive, and confident. The scale ranged from 1, not at all to 5, very much. This measure was found to be reliable over the three time points (α_pretest = .77, α_posttest = .80, α_{delayed posttest} = .79).

Perceived similarity

A modified version of the Perceived Similarity Scale (McKirnan et al., 1983) was used to assess the participants’ perceived similarity to Turkish Cypriots. Participants had to report the extent to which they perceived themselves to be similar to Turkish Cypriots in the following six aspects: overall lifestyle, personality, cultural background, way of dressing, appearance, and basic values. The scale ranged from 1, not at all to 5, very much. This measure was found to be highly reliable over the three time points (α_pretest = .88, α_posttest = .92, α_{delayed posttest} = .91).

Typicality of outgroup member

Participants indicated the degree to which they thought that the person with whom they interacted with was a typical member of their community. The scale ranged from 1, not typical at all to 5, extremely typical.

Interpersonal communication competence (filler)

The ten-item Interpersonal Communication Competence Short-Form Scale (Rubin & Martin, 1994) was used as a questionnaire filler. Participants had to indicate in a scale (1 = almost never, 5 = almost always) the different ways that they communicate with others (e.g., “My conversations are pretty one-sided”, “When I’ve been wronged, I confront the person who wronged me”).

Results

Preliminary Analysis

Descriptive data

Descriptive data, including means, standard deviations, and correlations among the study variables at pretest are displayed in Table 1. Participants reported moderate levels of prejudice toward Turkish Cypriots, as reflected in neutral evaluations of outgroup attitudes, behavioural intentions, outgroup trust, willingness for cohabitation, intergroup anxiety, and perceived similarity. In addition, participants reported minimal levels of prior contact with Turkish Cypriots. As in previous research, the variables were significantly intercorrelated and in the predicted direction, with the exception of the non-significant association between prior contact and perceived similarity.

Table 1.

Means, standard deviations, and correlations of the variables of the study at pretest (N = 96).

	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. Prior contact	1.29	0.42	-
2. Outgroup attitudes	56.04	22.96	.28**	-
3. Behavioural intentions	3.08	0.96	.32***	.59***	-
4. Outgroup trust	2.00	0.72	.46***	.61***	.58***	-
5. Willingness for cohabitation	3.27	0.96	.35***	.69***	.60***	.58***	-
6. Intergroup anxiety	2.83	0.71	−.38***	−.54***	−.50***	−.62***	−.63***	-
7. Perceived similarity	2.51	0.84	.17	.34***	.43***	.51***	.48***	−.45***

p < .01, ***p < .001.

Random allocation of the participants to the control and intervention condition

In order to confirm that the random allocation of the participants to the control and intervention condition was properly implemented, we carried out a one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to examine whether there were any differences between the two conditions on prior contact, outgroup attitudes, behavioural intentions, outgroup trust, willingness for cohabitation, intergroup anxiety, and perceived similarity at pretest phase. The results of the analysis indicated that there were no significant differences in the variables between the control and intervention condition, F(7, 88) = 0.62, p = .733, Λ = .95. Therefore, it was confirmed that the randomisation of the participants to the two conditions led to no significant differences on pre-existing measurements.

Perceived typicality of outgroup member

To evaluate whether the participants in the intervention condition perceived the confederates that they interacted with as typical members of the Turkish Cypriot outgroup, we performed an analysis on the typicality of the outgroup member measure, which was administered only at posttest. It was found that participants belonging to the intervention condition perceived the confederates as moderate to very typical members of the outgroup (M = 3.47, SD = 1.27). Furthermore, the typicality of outgroup member was similar for the male (Μ = 3.42, SD = 1.37) and female confederate (M = 3.48, SD = 1.25).

Main Analysis

Six two-way mixed ANOVAs with Condition (control vs intervention) as the between-subjects factor and Time (pretest, posttest and delayed posttest) as the within-subjects factor were conducted to investigate the effects of direct contact on outgroup attitudes, behavioural intentions, outgroup trust, willingness for cohabitation, intergroup anxiety, and perceived similarity. The means and standard deviations of the variables for both conditions at pretest, posttest and delayed posttest are presented in Table 2. The scores, along with the within and between trends of each variable for the control and intervention conditions across the three time points, are shown in Supplemental Figures S1–S6. As an exploratory robustness check, we added Gender (female vs male) as a between-subjects factor; no Condition × Time × Gender interactions emerged for any outcome (all ps ⩾ .320), and the Condition × Time effects remained unchanged.

Table 2.

Means and standard deviations of prejudice variables by condition and time.

	Control			Intervention
	Pretest	Posttest	Delayed posttest	Pretest	Posttest	Delayed posttest
	M (SD)	M (SD)	M (SD)	M (SD)	M (SD)	M (SD)
Outgroup attitudes	58.82 (20.94)^a	55.10 (20.03)^a	51.96 (22.27)^a	52.89 (24.92)^a	61.33 (23.41)^a	57.33 (21.99)^a
Behavioural intentions	3.22 (0.85)^a	2.82 (0.93)^a	2.71 (0.90)^a	2.92 (1.07)^a	3.45 (0.92)^b	3.10 (1.07)^a
Outgroup trust	2.05 (0.67)^a	2.02 (0.71)^a	2.02 (0.84)^a	1.94 (0.78)^a	2.33 (0.75)^b	2.15 (0.71)^a
Willingness for cohabitation	3.40 (0.81)^a	3.41 (0.86)^a	3.39 (0.84)^a	3.13 (1.09)^a	3.61 (0.90)^a	3.40 (0.96)^a
Intergroup anxiety	2.71 (0.62)^a	2.74 (0.67)^a	2.78 (0.66)^a	2.96 (0.79)^a	2.53 (0.77)^a	2.65 (0.76)^a
Perceived similarity	2.54 (0.81)^a	2.49 (0.76)^a	2.47 (0.81)^a	2.47 (0.88)^a	3.31 (0.99)^b	3.05 (0.93)^b

Note. Different superscript letters indicate significant between-condition differences. Means sharing the same letter do not differ significantly.

Outgroup attitudes

The analysis for outgroup attitudes yielded a main effect of Time, F(2, 188) = 3.45, p = .033, η² = .03, and a significant Condition × Time interaction, F(2, 188) = 12.10, p < .001, η² = .11, but no main effect of Condition, F(1, 94) = 0.19, p = .658. Pairwise comparisons revealed that participants in the intervention condition had significantly improved outgroup attitudes in posttest compared to pretest (M_diff = 8.44, SE = 2.11, p < .001, 95% CI [3.28, 13.60]), although their outgroup attitudes slightly but significantly decreased from posttest to delayed posttest (M_diff = −4.00, SE = 1.62, p = .047, 95% CI [−7.96, −0.03]). Moreover, participants in the intervention condition did not show a significant change in outgroup attitudes from pretest to delayed posttest (M_diff = 4.44, SE = 2.23, p = .150, 95% CI [−1.01, 9.90]). Participants in the control condition appeared to have worse outgroup attitudes in delayed posttest compared to pretest (M_diff = −6.86, SE = 2.10, p = .005, 95% CI [−11.99, −1.73]).

Behavioural intentions

The analysis for behavioural intentions revealed a significant main effect of Time, F(2, 188) = 5.23, p = .006, η² = .05, and a significant Condition × Time interaction, F(2, 188) = 22.05, p < .001, η² = .19, and no main effect of Condition, F(1, 94) = 1.79, p = .183. Pairwise comparisons showed that participants in the intervention condition improved significantly in behavioural intentions from pretest to posttest (M_diff = 0.52, SE = 0.10, p < .001, 95% CI [0.26, 0.78]); however, their behavioural intentions decreased from posttest to delayed posttest (M_diff = −0.34, SE = 0.08, p < .001, 95% CI [−0.56, −0.13]). Participants in the intervention condition did not show a significant change in behavioural intentions from pretest to delayed posttest (M_diff = 0.17, SE = 0.11, p = .410, 95% CI [−0.11, 0.46]). Participants in the control condition were shown to have significantly reduced behavioural intentions in posttest (M_diff = −0.39, SE = 0.10, p < .001, 95% CI [−0.64, −0.15]) and delayed posttest (M_diff = −0.50, SE = 0.11, p < .001, 95% CI [−0.77, −0.23]) compared to pretest.

Outgroup trust

The analysis for outgroup trust showed a main effect of Time, F(2, 188) = 4.57, p = .011, η² = .04, and a significant Condition × Time interaction, F(2, 188) = 6.24, p = .002, η² = .06, but no main effect of Condition, F(1, 94) = 0.59, p = .444. Pairwise comparisons revealed that participants in the intervention condition significantly increased in outgroup trust from pretest to posttest (M_diff = 0.38, SE = 0.09, p < .001, 95% CI [0.17, 0.60]), while participants in the control condition sustained similar levels of outgroup trust over time. Even though the intervention condition’s outgroup trust decreased in delayed posttest compared to posttest, the difference was not significant (M_diff = −0.17, SE = 0.07, p = .069, 95% CI [−0.36, 0.01]). In addition to that, participants in the intervention condition did not show a significant change in outgroup trust from pretest to delayed posttest (M_diff = 0.21, SE = 0.09, p = .073, 95% CI [−0.01, 0.43]).

Willingness for cohabitation

The analysis for willingness for cohabitation yielded a significant main effect of Time, F(2, 188) = 6.17, p = .003, η² = .06, and a significant Condition × Time interaction, F(2, 188) = 5.74, p = .004, η² = .05, and no main effect of Condition, F(1, 94) = 0.01, p = .904. Pairwise comparisons showed that participants in the intervention condition had significantly improved willingness for cohabitation in posttest (M_diff = 0.47, SE = 0.10, p < .001, 95% CI [0.22, 0.73]) and delayed posttest (M_diff = 0.26, SE = 0.10, p = .048, 95% CI [0.00, 0.53]) compared to pretest. Although intervention condition’s willingness for cohabitation reduced from posttest to delayed posttest, the difference between the two time points was not significant (M_diff = −0.21, SE = 0.09, p = .063, 95% CI [−0.43, 0.00]). Participants in the control condition maintained similar levels of willingness for cohabitation over time.

Intergroup anxiety

The analysis for intergroup anxiety revealed a significant main effect of Time, F(2, 188) = 7.48, p < .001, η² = .07, and a significant Condition × Time interaction, F(2, 188) = 11.59, p < .001, η² = .11, but no main effect of Condition, F(1, 94) = 0.04, p = .832. Pairwise comparisons showed that participants in the intervention condition had decreased significantly in intergroup anxiety from pretest to posttest (M_diff = −0.43, SE = 0.08, p < .001, 95% CI [−0.64, −0.22]) and from pretest to delayed posttest (M_diff = −0.31, SE = 0.07, p < .001, 95% CI [−0.49, −0.12]), whereas participants in the control condition sustained similar levels of intergroup anxiety over the three time periods. Although intervention condition’s intergroup anxiety slightly increased from posttest to delayed posttest, the difference was not significant (M_diff = 0.12, SE = 0.06, p = .162, 95% CI [−0.03, 0.27]).

Perceived similarity

The analysis for perceived similarity showed a main effect of Time, F(2, 188) = 16.81, p < .001, η² = .15, a main effect of Condition, F(1, 94) = 7.82, p = .006, η² = .07, and a significant Condition × Time interaction, F(2, 188) = 22.04, p < .001, η² = .19. Pairwise comparisons revealed that participants in the intervention condition had significantly increased perceived similarity in posttest (M_diff = 0.84, SE = 0.10, p < .001, 95% CI [0.59, 1.09]) and delayed posttest (M_diff = 0.58, SE = 0.11, p < .001, 95% CI [0.32, 0.85]) compared to pretest; however, their perceived similarity slightly decreased from posttest to delayed posttest (M_diff = −0.25, SE = 0.09, p = .020, 95% CI [−0.48, −0.03]). Participants in the control condition sustained similar levels of perceived similarity over time.

In addition, pairwise comparisons were performed between control and intervention condition at pretest, posttest and delayed posttest. There were no significant differences between the control and intervention condition in any of the prejudice variables at pretest. The two conditions significantly differed at posttest in behavioural intentions (M_diff = 0.62, SE = 0.19, p = .001, 95% CI [0.24, 1.00]), outgroup trust (M_diff = 0.30, SE = 0.14, p = .045, 95% CI [0.00, 0.60]) and perceived similarity (M_diff = 0.82, SE = 0.18, p < .001, 95% CI [0.46, 1.18]), with participants in the intervention condition reporting higher levels of behavioural intentions, outgroup trust and perceived similarity than participants in the control condition. Finally, the control and intervention condition significantly differed at delayed posttest in perceived similarity (M_diff = 0.58, SE = 0.17, p = .002, 95% CI [0.22, 0.93]), with the intervention condition exhibiting a higher level of perceived similarity.

Discussion

The present study investigated the effectiveness and durability of a brief direct contact intervention in reducing Greek Cypriot university students’ prejudice towards Turkish Cypriots. Results revealed that the intervention improved participants’ outgroup attitudes, behavioural intentions, outgroup trust, willingness for cohabitation, perceived similarity, and intergroup anxiety in the short-term. Moreover, the positive effects on willingness for cohabitation, perceived similarity, and intergroup anxiety were sustained at the 1-month follow-up, which is a very important finding given the political potential for reunification of Cyprus through the solution of the Cyprus problem. These results suggest that brief direct contact can improve prejudice-related outcomes among young adults in segregated, deeply divided, and intractable conflict settings, producing broad short-term benefits and selectively maintained gains of particular political importance.

The finding concerning the short-term effectiveness of direct contact aligns with the general consensus in the contact literature (Hsieh et al., 2022). It also aligns with evidence from conflict affected-settings that direct contact interventions typically yield temporary improvements in common prejudice-related outcomes, such as attitudes and trust (e.g., Bruneau & Saxe, 2012; Schroeder & Risen, 2016). Importantly, we also observed effects in broader reconciliation outcomes (e.g., willingness for cohabitation), which contrasts with recent field studies reporting limited change on such measures (e.g., Reimer et al., 2022). A plausible explanation is the greater experimental control afforded by the lab, allowing us to manipulate crucial aspects related to the interaction (e.g., selection of confederates). This is consistent with evidence that laboratory interventions, including ‘light-touch’ designs, tend to produce larger effects than comparable field interventions (Paluck et al., 2021). In line with recommendations for laboratory experimentation, we adopted a longitudinal design with a delayed posttest to minimize demand effects and we made our intervention materials, measures, and dataset publicly available to facilitate cumulative progress (Paluck et al., 2021).

Contrary to predictions, a brief interaction with an outgroup member was sufficient to produce lasting changes in willingness for cohabitation, intergroup anxiety, and perceived similarity. These findings contrast with evidence from conflict settings indicating that the effectiveness of direct contact on reconciliation-related outcomes is typically short-lived (e.g., Bruneau & Saxe, 2012; Mousa, 2020). It is possible that these sustained effects reflect the general lack of prior direct intergroup contact in our sample. As noted in the literature, when contact is relatively novel in people’s lives, its effects tend to be stronger (Al Ramiah & Hewstone, 2013). Given that, for most participants, this was their first face-to-face intergroup experience, these results suggest that positive interactions in safe and structured settings, when they do occur, can be particularly consequential for shifting proximal cognitive and affective variables that endure beyond the immediate context.

Specifically, the sustained change in willingness for cohabitation may reflect the experience of high-quality contact among a cohort for whom such contact is both largely novel and much needed. Greek Cypriot youth, who have not coexisted with Turkish Cypriots, tend to be less hopeful about a solution to the Cyprus problem (Hasler et al., 2023). They also constitute the age group within the Greek Cypriot community with stronger within-group separatist orientations and a greater need for prejudice reduction interventions (Donno et al., 2021; Yucel & Psaltis, 2020). Prior work indicates that prejudice-prone individuals benefit disproportionately from high-quality contact (e.g., Kteily et al., 2019) and that quality matters more than quantity (e.g., Johnston & Glasford, 2018). Thus, even a single session, high-quality encounter, that is, positive, pleasant, and cooperative contact (Voci & Hewstone, 2003), could be effective in improving willingness for cohabitation. This aligns with a recent representative study in Cyprus showing that scarce but good quality (not high-quantity) contact can suffice to improve readiness for cohabitation among Greek Cypriot youth (Yucel & Psaltis, 2020).

Since willingness for cohabitation constitutes a more direct measure of peaceful coexistence, the durability of this effect following a brief intervention is noteworthy, suggesting potential for greater integration of Greek Cypriot youth with the Turkish Cypriot community. This is especially relevant in the event of a political settlement, where both communities would be expected to live together in shared spaces and areas given the bicommunal bizonal nature of the federation under discussion. Accordingly, increased willingness for cohabitation may pave the way for a more integrated society in Cyprus and, in turn, help reduce psychological divides that have persisted for decades by creating more opportunities for intercommunal contact.

The intervention may have produced long-term reductions in intergroup anxiety because, contrary to participants’ expectations, the brief yet novel interaction with an outgroup member was more pleasant than anticipated. According to Stephan and Stephan (1985), negative expectations about intergroup encounters are associated with heightened anxiety, and such expectations are more likely when prior intergroup contact is limited, a history of conflict exists, status differences are prominent, and knowledge and stereotypes about the outgroup are unfavourable, factors salient in the Cypriot context. Accordingly, the contact manipulation used in the present study, akin to the “Fast Friends” procedure (Aron et al., 1997), may have buffered anxiety by recalibrating negative expectancies about intergroup encounters, in a similar vein to cross-group friendships (Page-Gould et al., 2008), while also highlighting unexpected similarities (Mallett et al., 2008). Indeed, anecdotal evidence from the “Imagine” contact scheme for elementary and high school students, implemented for several years by the intercommunal Association for Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR¹) in Cyprus, suggests that Greek Cypriot students often exclaim upon first meeting Turkish Cypriots: “They are just like us!”.

Considering evidence from Cyprus that 85.34% of Greek Cypriots report no Turkish Cypriot friends in samples including older cohorts who lived before the war (Psaltis & Lytras, 2012), it is plausible that this percentage is even higher among young adults; together with generally low prior contact, even a 10-minute structured self-disclosure exchange may help establish interpersonal closeness analogous to the early stages of cross-group friendship. Notably, sustained reductions in intergroup anxiety are important, as lower anxiety can facilitate future interactions and maintenance of cross-group friendships, which in turn can lead to meaningful and lasting changes in key prejudice outcomes (e.g., outgroup attitudes; Davies et al., 2011).

Stable changes in perceived similarity following a brief intergroup encounter may stem from participants’ realization that they share more similarities with the outgroup across meaningful domains (e.g., cultural background) than they had expected. Greek Cypriots grow up believing they are fundamentally different from Turkish Cypriots, since they have lived their entire lives in a deeply divided setting without bicommunal coexistence. They have also been exposed to an educational system that is Greek Cypriot-centered and, to this day, aims to strengthen identification with Greece (Papadakis, 2008; Psaltis et al., 2011), and does not teach anything about the history of Turkish Cypriots on the island. In this system, Turkish Cypriots are portrayed as lacking agency in relation to Turkey, which is depicted as the enemy country, occupier, and controlling force over the Turkish Cypriot community, while little attention is given to bicommunal similarities or cooperation (Papadakis, 2008). Furthermore, the one-sided Greek Cypriot narrative remains pervasive in everyday life through channels such as the mass media (Avraamidou & Psaltis, 2019), alongside limited opportunities for direct contact that might challenge this discourse.

As evidenced in the present study, even a 10-minute encounter was sufficient for Greek Cypriot young adults to recognize commonalities with Turkish Cypriots, possibly fostering a more inclusive common national identity (Cypriot) and reducing symbolic threat, namely the perception that the outgroup threatens the ingroup’s values, beliefs, identity, or general ways of life (Stephan et al., 2015), as suggested by prior research (e.g., Riek et al., 2010). In a similar vein, Donno et al. (2021) noted that expressions of cultural similarity coincided with greater identification with a common Cypriot identity among Greek Cypriots. Notably, our intervention did not explicitly prime similarities; rather, it stimulated a natural first-time conversation between two people. Taken together, this pattern suggests that initial face-to-face positive intergroup experiences in segregated and long-entrenched conflict settings can heighten perceived intergroup similarity, which in turn may foster a common ingroup identity, a well-supported pathway to prejudice reduction (e.g., Dovidio et al., 2008; Vezzali et al., 2015).

The finding that direct contact was insufficient to yield sustained improvements in primarily affective outcomes is consistent with prior research in segregated and intractable conflict settings (e.g., Bruneau & Saxe, 2012; Schroeder & Risen, 2016). It also aligns with evidence that a single session of contact is inadequate to change deeply rooted negative attitudes and emotions (Ioannou et al., 2018). One possible reason is that Greek Cypriots are exposed from an early age to war remnants and one-sided narratives via school, family, and media, in which the ingroup is portrayed as the victim and the outgroup as the enemy, while shared intercommunal experiences are silenced (Husnu et al., 2018; Papadakis, 2008). In this context, where socialization processes foster ingrained negative outgroup perceptions (Husnu et al., 2018), prejudicial social norms (Grady et al., 2023), and intergroup mistrust (Tam et al., 2009), a 10-minute interaction with a single outgroup member is unlikely to produce lasting change in attitudes and trust towards the entire outgroup.

The intervention also did not yield lasting changes in behavioural intentions. One explanation might be that, given exclusive ingroup victimhood can foster entrenched mistrust (Tam et al., 2009) and feelings of threat and insecurity (Dixon et al., 2020), factors strongly associated with lower contact intentions and avoidance (Kauff et al., 2021), a brief, single session of contact is unlikely to counteract such long-standing dynamics. A second possibility concerns intergroup contact self-efficacy during the 1-month interval before the follow-up, that is, individuals’ confidence in their ability to interact successfully with outgroup members after leaving the lab. Limited opportunities for intergroup contact stemming from structural constraints, such as intercommunal geographic separation, restricted mobility across the divide (Schroeder & Risen, 2016), and institutional segregation (Reimer et al., 2022), likely suppressed contact self-efficacy, discouraging actual contact and allowing behavioural intentions to revert towards pretest levels. Finally, it is possible that participants were re-exposed to societal norms discouraging intergroup socializing (Grady et al., 2023) via ingroup members (e.g., family, friends) and mass media. Given evidence that norms shape intergroup behaviour in historically conflicted societies (e.g., Paluck, 2009) and that fear of social ostracism or devaluation for norm violations can be extremely salient in such settings (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2013), a brief contact manipulation may not have been sufficient to impede these processes and alter long-term behavioural intentions.

With respect to differences between conditions, participants in the intervention condition reported higher behavioural intentions, outgroup trust, and perceived similarity than those in the control condition at posttest. Of these differences, only perceived similarity persisted at the 1-month follow-up. This pattern suggests that brief, first-time direct intergroup contact can improve key reconciliation precursors among youth, though effects are partial rather than comprehensive, and most gains attenuate without additional or repeated contact. Furthermore, these findings highlight the role and potential durability of perceived similarity in divided and conflict-affected settings, marking a meaningful step towards improving intergroup relations and laying the groundwork for broader reconciliation.

In contrast to the intervention condition’s gains, the control condition remained largely stable across time. When deviations emerged, on outgroup attitudes and behavioural intentions, they reflected declines rather than improvements. In a setting with a long history of conflict, such negative drift is plausible given continued exposure to prejudicial norms and limited opportunities for contact, as discussed above. Taken together, improvement in the intervention condition alongside stability or decline in the control condition strengthens internal validity and supports the conclusion that the positive effects are attributable to the brief face-to-face intergroup encounter.

This study is the first to replicate Ioannou et al. (2018), the only direct intergroup contact experiment conducted in the post-conflict context of Cyprus. Importantly, we extended that design by assessing key reconciliation outcomes such as willingness for cohabitation, recruiting both male and female participants, and lengthening the delayed posttest to one month. Concerning outgroup attitudes, we found temporary but not sustained improvements, consistent with Ioannou et al. (2018). However, regarding intergroup anxiety, we observed significant reductions at both the immediate and delayed posttests (compared to pretest) in the intervention condition, whereas Ioannou et al. (2018) reported no improvements across time points. One explanation for this discrepancy might be that their sample was not sufficiently powered to detect the hypothesized differences, as noted in that paper. Another explanation may have to do with outgroup typicality; in our study, participants perceived the confederates as more typical outgroup members than did participants in theirs. Using the same typicality scale, we observed moderate to very typical ratings (M = 3.47, SD = 1.27), whereas they reported low to moderate typicality (M = 2.46, SD = 1.10). Consistent with contact literature (e.g., Brown & Hewstone, 2005; Hewstone & Brown, 1986), higher perceived outgroup typicality may have facilitated generalization of the positive effects of contact from a single outgroup member to the broader outgroup, thereby yielding stronger reductions in intergroup anxiety. This underscores the value of selecting interaction partners who are representative of the outgroup for first face-to-face intergroup experiences among young cohorts in divided settings with long-entrenched conflict, while also meeting Allport’s (1954) conditions for optimal contact (e.g., equal status among participants).

This study contributes to the field by providing support for direct contact through a longitudinal experimental design, addressing limitations noted in the literature (Paluck et al., 2019). Another contribution of our research is that it tests the contact hypothesis in a deeply divided and conflict-affected context across key prejudice and reconciliation outcomes in a prejudice-prone youth sample (Yucel & Psaltis, 2020). In doing so, we highlight features likely to underlie effectiveness, namely first face-to-face intergroup experiences, high-quality contact, strong experimental control (e.g., structured setting), alignment with Allport’s (1954) conditions, and the selection of representative outgroup interaction partners. Finally, this study contributes by informing policymakers and reconciliation initiatives in Cyprus, providing evidence on a cohort that has received relatively little attention in prior work.

The findings have significant practical implications for segregated and post-conflict settings. They indicate that brief direct intergroup contact can serve as a useful first step towards reconciliation among youth, who typically have limited prior contact and a greater predisposition to prejudice and negative stereotyping. To maximize impact, however, interventions should build on brief encounters by incorporating repeated contact, longer interaction periods, and engagement with multiple outgroup members, alongside the design features noted above (e.g., high-quality contact). Adding these elements increases the likelihood of changing and sustaining outcomes that matter for conflict transformation (Al Ramiah & Hewstone, 2013). In practice, youth-focused initiatives, such as collective activism, joint projects, cultural heritage programs, cross-group clubs (e.g., choir), and collaborative research, can operationalize these features and transform face-to-face contact into a scalable approach that improves intergroup relations. For the Cypriot context, the policy imperative is clear: increase and sustain meaningful bicommunal contact, with particular attention to groups most in need (e.g., Greek Cypriot youth), who are discouraged from contact with the other community by the official policy of non-recognition of educational institutions in the north of Cyprus. Embedding bicommunal programs within schools, universities, and community institutions can normalize cooperation in everyday life, facilitate coexistence, and help sustain durable peace once a political settlement is reached.

There are some limitations of the present study that have to be addressed. First, the prejudice-related variables included in the study were assessed via self-report measures, limiting the validity of the findings for reasons such as socially desirable responding (Hewstone et al., 2011; Paulhus, 1991). Additionally, self-report measures constitute substitute behavioural measures and not actual behaviour. The tendency of social psychologists to rely excessively on self-report measures has been repeatedly pointed out in the literature (e.g., Al Ramiah & Hewstone, 2013; Baumeister et al., 2007; Sassenberg & Ditrich, 2019). Possible ways to overcome the limitations of self-report measures would be to include implicit bias measures (e.g., Turner et al., 2007), response time measures of attitude accessibility (e.g., Vonofakou et al., 2007), and behavioural measures (e.g., Turner & West, 2012).

Second, we did not assess several theoretically relevant variables that would inform the intervention’s efficacy and help explain why some outcomes persisted whereas others did not. For example, although we argue that our contact manipulation constituted high-quality contact, namely positive, pleasant, and cooperative contact (Voci & Hewstone, 2003), we did not include direct measures to verify participants’ perception of interaction quality. In addition, assessing prior indirect contact, national identification, expectations about intergroup encounters, social norms, and contact self-efficacy would have enabled more precise attribution of effects and a clearer understanding of mechanisms and boundary conditions. Future studies should include these measures to test mediating mechanisms and moderating conditions, clarifying how direct contact operates in conflict contexts such as Cyprus. Importantly, the present study provides the foundational evidence needed to pursue this agenda.

Third, because all conversations were conducted in English, a small number of participants (approximately three) in the intervention condition experienced difficulties communicating with the Turkish Cypriot confederate due to limited language proficiency. In general, the use of a non-native language may have constrained conversational richness and self-disclosure across participants, thereby attenuating contact effects. Lastly, the sample was predominantly female, which reduces precision for estimates among men and may limit generalizability, although exploratory checks including gender did not change the pattern of intervention effects.

Future research in segregated and long-entrenched conflict settings should further test institutionalized youth-focused direct contact interventions to identify the program features and dosage levels that most effectively produce durable change, and to assess their generalizability across contexts and age groups. We also recommend deeper examination of emerging constructs within the contact framework, with perceived similarity and willingness for cohabitation being key outcome variables in contexts of deeply divided societies, and to clarify their roles in prejudice reduction and reconciliation. Studies should further recruit gender-balanced samples and ensure sufficient power to test potential moderation by gender, enhancing precision and generalizability. Finally, studies with Turkish Cypriot youth are essential to assess direct contact interventions and establish whether our findings replicate in the other community.

In conclusion, brief yet novel direct intergroup contact is an important first step towards reconciliation among youth in segregated and intractable conflict settings, but achieving lasting peace requires more, including repeated and prolonged contact with multiple outgroup members, among other conditions. Nevertheless, the identified pathway from a brief intervention to politically relevant and stable changes, such as willingness for renewed cohabitation, constitutes one of the most important and hopeful findings for a way forward in Cyprus. Therefore, researchers and policymakers should work together to build and institutionalize youth-focused programs in conflict-affected settings that incorporate these features to produce large-scale change.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-gpi-10.1177_13684302261419414 – Supplemental material for Can a 10-minute intergroup contact intervention reduce prejudice among youth in a post-conflict setting?

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-gpi-10.1177_13684302261419414 for Can a 10-minute intergroup contact intervention reduce prejudice among youth in a post-conflict setting? by Constantinos Efthymiou and Charis Psaltis in Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by an Educational Grant from the Onassis Foundation awarded to C. Efthymiou. The authors would like to thank the confederates and the participants who made this study possible.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Onassis Foundation [Grant No. F ZU 012-1/ 2024-2025].

Ethics Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with ethical guidelines specified in the APA Code of Conduct. Approvals were also obtained by the authors’ institution and national bioethics committee (approval no. 2023.01.119) on May 4, 2023. All participants provided written informed consent prior to enrolment in the study.

ORCID iDs

Constantinos Efthymiou

Charis Psaltis

Data Availability Statement

The dataset, analysis code and materials of the study are available on the Open Science Framework ().

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

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