Given this promising alternative, a recent study examined its effectiveness in promoting positive intergroup attitudes (such as friendliness), and reducing negative ones (some include feeling anxious, threatened and discriminated) among Turks and Kurds who have a history of conflict. For this purpose, members of both ethnic groups answered questionnaires to examine if intergroup attitudes differed between those who were exposed to the imagined positive encounter and those who were not. The study reveals that imagined contact had a positive effect on members of the majority group (Turks) increasing their positive attitudes and reducing negative ones towards Kurds. However, this only happens when members highly identify as being Turk. Results also show that if the imagined contact scenario included explicitly mentioning ethnic pride, it became counterproductive and increases negative intergroup attitudes. Finally, the research found that even though imagined contact did not affect the minority group's (Kurds) attitudes towards the majority group (Turks), it did positively affect their perception of the Turks' behavior by feeling less discrimination.
It appears that imagined contact can be beneficial to set the stage for dialogue in situations where all hope seems lost. Given that it appears to be most effective amongst members highly identified with majority groups, it can be a good strategy to level out power dynamics and enable minorities to be heard. However, for this to work, the imagined scenario cannot explicitly mention their heritage pride since it will keep the conflict entrenched. But imagined contact cannot be entirely depended upon. Since it mostly affects minority groups by reducing their perceptions of being victims of negative behavior such as discrimination, it might breed complacency. In doing so, motivation for taking action towards building a more equitable world might be lost.
Bagci, S., Piyale, Z., & Ebcim, E. (2018). Imagined contact in high conflict settings: The role of ethnic group identification and the perspective of minority group members. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 48, 3-14.