Spontaneous Contact and Social Resilience Following Eruption of Interethnic Violence in Ethnically Mixed Settings

Does spontaneous contact between individuals from different ethnonational groups affect their social resilience, specifically their ability to avoid escalation and radicalization following eruptions of ethnic violence? To address this question, we conducted a series of studies in mixed Jewish–Palestinian cities and academic settings. Study 1, based on data collected through large-scale online surveys of residents in both mixed and non-mixed cities in Israel (n = 944), reveals that Jewish and Palestinian residents living in mixed cities exhibit higher social resilience than residents of homogeneous cities. This heightened resilience is manifested through more favorable attitudes toward the outgroup and reduced feelings of tension during and following episodes of intercommunal violence. We propose that the underlying mechanism explaining this resilience to the disruptive effects of violence is the higher prevalence of spontaneous intergroup contact enabled in mixed settings compared to more homogeneous ones. This explanation is supported by Study 2, which involved two rounds of surveys completed by Jewish and Palestinian students (n = 6467) at a heterogeneous campus in a mixed city in Israel. The findings demonstrate that positive attitudes toward the outgroup following incidents of intercommunal violence were more durable among students exposed to spontaneous intergroup contact. We discuss the implications of our findings for deepening our understanding of conflict and conflict management in ethnically mixed and conflicted settings.