The effects of direct and indirect contact on prejudice: 2007 and 2017 results among Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots

ABSTRACT

In post-conflict and segregated societies, overcoming high prejudice between groups is essential for peaceful coexistence. In this paper, we explore the roles of direct contact (face-to-face contact and cross-group friendship) and indirect contact (extended cross-group friendship) in reducing prejudice between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots living in Cyprus. Moreover, this study further explores whether the effects of direct and indirect contact vary between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, as well as across a ten-year period. To explore these issues, we analyze data from different representative samples of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots at two different time points (years 2007 and 2017). The results suggest that all three forms of contact have significant effects on prejudice. However, they also exhibit some variations by community (but not year of data collection) in the effects of direct (but not indirect) contact on prejudice.

KEYWORDS:

• Direct contact
• indirect contact
• prejudice
• Greek Cypriots
• Turkish Cypriots

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Indirect contact refers to a series of experiences that include: 1) Knowledge of another ingroup member having contact (or friendship) with an outgroup member (Wright et al., 1997), 2) Observation of ingroup and outgroup member having real-life direct contact (i.e., vicarious contact) (Mazziotta et al., 2011; Ioannou et al., 2018) 3) Media-based contact (consuming TV, films, radio shows, or documentaries featuring ingroup and outgroup members interacting) (Paluck, 2007), 4) Computer-mediated intergroup contact, like having friendships on social media (Zezelj et al., 2017) or interacting through chat platforms, and 5) imagined contact, which refers to the simulation of a contact experience in one’s imagination (Husnu and Crisp 2010).

2 An infographic showing the opportunities for contact and crossings can be found here: https://infogram.com/distribution-of-opportunities-for-bi-communal-contact-in-cyprus-cyprob-1hdw2jdxylmj2l0

3 In order to make the comparison between these two surveys more valid and reliable, two questions were added to the survey for TCs about whether their thoughts on living together with GCs or having GCs as their neighbors had been influenced by the failed talks. Those who responded yes to either of these two questions were dropped from the analyses, leading to a final sample of 504 TCs. Comparing the complete sample of TCs (N=600) to the final sample we used (N=504), there are no significant differences in terms of our key variables and control variables. This suggests that using the smaller sample (N=504) does not bias our results.

4 Higher alpha scores indicate higher reliability. Some prior research suggests, however, that 0.60 is the minimum cut-off point for an acceptable alpha (Tabachnick and Fidell 2001; Nunnally and Bernstein 1994). Moreover, the same items for face-to-face contact have been used in prior research on Cyprus (McKeown and Psaltis 2017).

5 Our data did not include measures on extended contact via less intimate ingroup relationships (i.e., neighbors and work colleagues), as in some prior research (Tausch et al. 2011).

6 Friendships are usually measured in a quantitative form, ranging from none to more than 10 in 5-point Likert scales (Lolliot et al. 2015). In fact, the first data set we use (i.e., from year 2007) included such a measure. However, having used this scale to gather data in Cyprus, we found that the scale is highly skewed with the vast majority not reporting any cross-group friendships. For example, according to the 2007 results, 88 percent of GCs and 70 percent of TCs do not have any friends from the other community. In addition, we found that collapsing this scale into a binary form did not distort the findings in any way and better reflected the fact that this scale was essentially capturing the presence or absence of cross-group friendships. For this reason, we decided in our second 2017 study to use the measure in its binary form. Just to make sure that collapsing the measure into a binary would not distort the findings, we compared the zero-order correlations of both measures with the prejudice measure from year 2007. The results were very similar in magnitude (for GCs: r=0.26** on the Likert scale measure and r=0.28** on the binary scale, for TCs: r=0.30** on the Likert scale measure and r=0.25** on the Binary Scale). Additionally, there is longitudinal literature which studied change patterns of intergroup friendships that suggest that the shift from no friendship to some friendship is successful in predicting prejudice reduction, measured in a binary form (Titzmann et al. 2015) and that more friendships do not necessarily add something more than a single friendship (Raabe and Beelmann 2011). In addition, for extended cross-group friendship, the measure is also highly skewed in year 2007, with the vast majority of individuals not reporting any extended friendship through family. For example, in year 2007, 90 percent of GCs and 83 percent of TCs do not have any family members who have any friends from the other community. Again, to make sure that collapsing the measure into a binary would not distort the findings, we compared the zero-order correlations of both measures with the prejudice measure from year 2007. The results were very similar in magnitude (for GCs: r=0.22** on the Likert scale measure and r=0.20** on the Binary Scale, for TCs: r=0.21** on the Likert scale measure and r=0.19** on the binary scale). Thus, we decided to measure extended friendship through family in a binary form in year 2017.

Additional information

Funding

The data collection for both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities in 2007 was supported by the Nuffield Foundation New Career Development fellowship award given to Charis Psaltis in 2005 to study the intergroup contact between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots. The data collection for the Greek Cypriot community in 2017 was supported by the 311 yearly personal research funds of Charis Psaltis at the University of Cyprus. The data collection in the Turkish Cypriot community in 2017 was done with the support of the Grow Civic Programme financed by the European Union. The findings and their interpretations in this study are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

Notes on contributors

Deniz Yucel

Deniz Yucel is a Full Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at William Paterson University in New Jersey, United States. She obtained her MA and PhD in Sociology from the Ohio State University, United States. She specializes in the sociology of family, sociology of education, social stratification, work–family balance, and social capital. Her current research focuses on exploring further the contact theory by examining the conditions under which direct and indirect contact might affect intergroup relations among post-conflict societies. Her prior research has appeared in Social Science Research, Journal of Family Issues, Society and Mental Health, European Sociological Review and Social Indicators Research.

Charis Psaltis

Charis Psaltis is an Associate Professor of Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cyprus. He holds a degree in Educational Sciences and a degree in Psychology. He received his MPhil and PhD in Social and Developmental Psychology from the Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Cambridge. His main research interests are social interaction and learning and development, genetic epistemology, social representations of gender, intergroup contact and intergroup relations, the development of national identities, history teaching and collective memory. He currently runs the University Centre for Field Studies at the University of Cyprus.