Sustainably Reducing Prejudice through Brief Real-life Contact with the Living Library Intervention

To tackle inequality perpetuated by discrimination, interventions that sustainably change how people respond to underrepresented groups are needed. We evaluated the Living Library – a contact intervention where participants engage in brief conversations with different outgroups. We conducted two field studies – within four public libraries (Study 1; N = 79) and nine organizations (Study 2; N = 305). Across studies, we measured attitudes and anxiety at three time points (before, immediately after, and a week following the intervention). Results indicated improved attitudes and reduced anxiety towards the outgroup that persisted for at least one week. Notably, both participants who were mandated to attend the event by their organization and those who attended voluntarily showed improvements in attitudes. Our project offers insights into the effects of the intervention across distinct contexts and shows that these effects endure beyond the immediate intervention context, re-affirming the contact hypothesis in a field setting.Keywords: prejudice reduction, intervention, intergroup contact, Living Library, attitudes