Theoretical Background

In contemporary European societies, increasing ethnic and cultural diversity poses both opportunities and challenges for intergroup relations. In Italy, as in other European countries, immigration has become a salient political and social issue, often framed in terms of competition and threat by majority-group members (Dixon et al., 2020). It is therefore crucial to identify psychosocial strategies that can foster more constructive and inclusive intergroup relations.

Cultural humility has been proposed as a promising psychosocial strategy to foster more constructive intergroup relations. Defined as an ongoing stance of self-reflection, openness, and awareness of power asymmetries in intercultural interactions (Tervalon & Murray-García, 1998; Hook et al., 2013; Foronda et al., 2016), cultural humility is associated with reduced prejudice, lower perceptions of intergroup threat, and greater openness to intergroup contact (e.g., Captari et al., 2019; Garau et al., 2026; Van Tongeren et al., 2016).

However, existing research is predominantly cross-sectional (e.g., Captari et al., 2019) or based on one-shot manipulations (Garau et al., 2026; Visintin et al., 2024), leaving unexplored the processual and enduring character of cultural humility. In addition, little is known about the possible cognitive and behavioural outcomes; indeed, no prior research has tested attributional complexity - the tendency to consider multiple, interacting causes when explaining social behaviour (Fletcher et al., 1986) - as an outcome of cultural humility. Moreover, few studies have examined whether cultivating cultural humility can produce enduring changes over time and influence concrete behavioural choices rather than solely self-reported attitudes and behavioural intentions.

The study addressed two main questions. First, can cultural humility be cultivated over time through a brief writing-based intervention reinforced by a booster session? Second, does such an intervention affect attributional complexity, perceived intergroup threat, support for multicultural rights, a behavioural resource-allocation task and a self-reported cultural humility measure?

Method

The study involved 147 Italian citizens (38.1% women, 59.9% man, 1.4% gender non-binary, 0.7% with other gender identity; Mage = 36.13, SDage = 11.31) recruited via Prolific, who were randomly assigned to the Experimental Condition (n = 74) or the Control Condition (n = 73).

The study adopted a four-wave longitudinal design, with each wave spaced approximately one week apart. At T0, participants completed a baseline questionnaire including measures of attributional complexity, intergroup threat, support for multicultural rights, simulated donation task between a social inclusion fund for immigrant people and technological development fund, and self-reported cultural humility. At T1, they completed either the cultural humility intervention or a structurally equivalent control task. At T2, they completed a booster session matched to their assigned condition. At T3, all participants completed the same measures administered at baseline.

Specifically, in the experimental condition, they completed a writing-based intervention designed to foster cultural humility toward immigrant people. The T1 session included tasks focused on challenging prior assumptions, providing multiple explanations of behaviour, reformulation of stereotypical statements, and recognition of structural disadvantage. The T2 booster reinforced these themes through brief perspective-taking, alternative explanation, reflection on a stereotypical comment, and inclusion-focused tasks. In the control condition, participants completed writing tasks matched in structure and in duration but focused on neutral content related to time management.

Findings

Mixed-design GLMs were conducted to examine changes over time (from T0 to T3) as a function of experimental condition. Across all outcomes, the analyses did not show evidence that the intervention produced significant changes over time compared to the control condition. We only found marginally significant main effect of time on attributional complexity a, F(1,145) = 3.53, p=.062, suggesting a marginally significant increase of attributional complexity from T0 to T3 (all other ps > .193).

Correlational analyses were conducted on the variables measured at T0 and T3. At both time points, the pattern of associations was highly coherent: self-reported cultural humility was positively related to attributional complexity, support for multicultural rights, and resource allocation toward the inclusion fund for immigrant people and negatively related to intergroup threat. The same constructs also showed strong temporal stability across T0 and T3, suggesting that the intergroup orientations assessed in the study were not only internally consistent within each wave but also relatively stable over time.

One possible interpretation of these non-significant results is that the intervention was too short to alter attitudes and behavioural choices that may remain relatively stable over short periods of time. Furthermore, participants in the control condition also completed structured writing tasks, which likely provided an active comparison rather than a minimal baseline, thereby making it more difficult to observe differences between the conditions. A second point concerns the timing of the design. Indeed, the main outcomes were assessed only at T0 and T3, meaning that any brief changes occurring immediately after the intervention or the booster session may not have been detected. More generally, the present results cannot distinguish between an intervention that is genuinely ineffective and one whose effects were too small, too transient or too context-dependent to emerge with the present design.

Contribution to wider research activities and future research

Despite the absence of significant effects from the intervention, the study contributes to broader research in at least two ways. Firstly, it extends current work on cultural humility beyond cross-sectional designs and one-shot manipulations by testing a longitudinal intervention design that included both an initial session and a reinforcement session. This is valuable because the literature on cultural humility in intergroup relations is still relatively recent, and further evidence is needed to establish whether and how it can be cultivated over time.

Secondly, the study broadens the range of outcomes typically examined in this field by including attributional complexity and a measure of behavioural resource allocation alongside more established attitudinal variables. Even in the absence of significant experimental effects, the observed correlational pattern suggests that these constructs form a coherent network and may therefore remain promising targets for future interventions.

Future research should examine whether stronger or more immersive interventions are better suited to producing changes in these outcomes. For example, written reflection could be combined with guided perspective-taking, repeated contact-based exercises, or more interactive activities that make cultural humility more salient. It would also be useful to include additional measurement time points closer to the intervention and booster sessions, in order to assess whether effects emerge in the short term and then fade over time.

More generally, future studies could test these interventions on more diverse samples and, for example, in contexts where baseline levels of intergroup threat are higher. In this way, the present project can be seen not only as a test of a specific intervention, but also as a step towards a broader research programme on the conditions under which cultural humility can become a significant lever for improving intergroup relations.

References

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