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How one gesture curbed ethnic discrimination
Abstract
Members of ethnic and racial minorities across North America and Europe continue to face discrimination, for instance, when applying for jobs or seeking housing. Such unequal treatment can occur because societies categorize people into groups along social, cultural, or ethnic and racial lines that seemingly rationalize differential treatment. Research suggests that it may take generations for such differences to decline, if they change at all. Here, we show that a single gesture by international soccer players at the World Cup 2018 – followed by an extensive public debate – led to a measurable and lasting decline in discrimination. Immediately after the galvanizing event, invitation rates to view apartments increased by 6 percentage points for the migrant group represented by the players, while responses to the native population did not change noticeably. We demonstrate that anti‐immigrant behavior can disband rapidly when the public receives messages challenging the nature of ethnic and racial categories while sharing a common cause. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
... Similar news reporting linking the spread of Covid-19 to specific minority groups was-to the best of our knowledge-absent in the Swiss press. Third, our study covers the entire country of Switzerland, limiting the risk of sample bias for general statements (Auer and Ruedin, 2022;Lacroix et al., 2022). Fourth, we apply a randomization approach in which we not only vary the name in an automatic platform-email as in Verhaeghe and Ghekiere (2021), but also other important dimensions as elaborated in Section 3. ...
When crises hit, social theory predicts increased hostility toward immigrants. We exploit the Covid-19 pandemic as a unique exogenous crisis and examine whether discrimination increased in its wake. Repeating a field experiment in the Swiss housing market in 2018 and 2020, we find no evidence of increased discrimination against the most important immigrant groups in Switzerland. Contrarily, when uncertainty dominates the market, proprietors appear to change their selection behavior by substituting signals of ethnicity for other markers of solvency and reliability and, consequently, invitation rates for immigrants increase relative to native house-hunters. We conclude that crises do not necessarily increase discriminatory behavior in market situations.
... Overall, this approach contributes both to developing the research field on ethnic discrimination-by proposing an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to examining everyday discrimination-and to providing first rigorous empirical experimental survey results that offer information to policymakers and other relevant stakeholders on what factors need to be changed in order to reduce discrimination (Laouénan and Rathelot, 2022), during everyday encounters in neighborhoods. This approach is supported by previous research showing that discriminating behavior can be reduced by changing particular relevant parameters of the situation (Auer and Ruedin, 2022). With its survey experimental approach, this article provides a foundation for future research on discriminating behavior in common everyday situations. ...
Research on discriminating behavior against ethnic minorities in everyday situations is still a rather under-researched field, since most prior research on ethnic discrimination focuses on housing markets, job markets, criminal justice, institutions or discourses. This article contributes toward filling the research-gap on everyday discrimination by bringing together prior research from sociology and social-psychology, including threat and competition theories from integration research, social identity theory, particularism-universalism theory and experimental findings on fairness norms. It conceptually advances the field by combining them into an integrated interdisciplinary approach that can examine discriminating behavior in everyday situations. This approach studies the dynamics of ingroup-outgroup relationships, fairness norms and threat in regard to negative behavior toward others (e.g., a neighbor). In particular, it focusses on the dynamics under which negative behavior is more likely toward an ethnic outgroup-person than an ingroup-person (i.e., discriminating behavior). To scrutinize the expectations derived within this framework, a factorial survey experiment was designed, implemented and analyzed (by means of multilevel mixed-effects linear regressions and average marginal effects). The survey experiment presents a hypothetical scenario between two neighbors in order to measure the effects and dynamics of ingroup-outgroup relationships, fairness norms and threat on behavior. While no significant outgroup-effect can be found in the general analysis of the main effects, more in-depth analyses show an interplay of situational cues: Outgroup-discriminating behavior becomes significantly more likely when the “actor” has low general fairness norms and/or when threat-level in a situation is low. These results foreground the importance of interdisciplinary in-depth analyses of dynamics for understanding the conditions under which discriminating behavior takes place in everyday situations—and for deriving measures that can reduce discrimination.
Whether powerful media outlets have effects on public opinion has been at the heart of theoretical and empirical discussions about the media’s role in political life. Yet, the effects of media campaigns are difficult to study because citizens self-select into media consumption. Using a quasi-experiment—the 30-year boycott of the most important Eurosceptic tabloid newspaper, The Sun, in Merseyside caused by the Hillsborough soccer disaster—we identify the effects of The Sun boycott on attitudes toward leaving the EU. Difference-in-differences designs using public opinion data spanning three decades, supplemented by referendum results, show that the boycott caused EU attitudes to become more positive in treated areas. This effect is driven by cohorts socialized under the boycott and by working-class voters who stopped reading The Sun. Our findings have implications for our understanding of public opinion, media influence, and ways to counter such influence in contemporary democracies.
The speed of the economic downturn in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has been exceptional, causing mass layoffs—in Germany up to 30% of the workforce in some industries. Economic rationale suggests that the decision on which workers are fired should depend on productivity-related individual factors. However, from hiring situations we know that discrimination—i.e., decisions driven by characteristics unrelated to productivity—is widespread in Western labor markets. Drawing on representative survey data on forced layoffs and short-time work collected in Germany between April and December 2020, this study highlights that discrimination against immigrants is also present in firing situations. The analysis shows that employees with a migration background are significantly more likely to lose their job than native workers when otherwise healthy firms are unexpectedly forced to let go of part of their workforce, while firms make more efforts to substitute firing with short-time working schemes for their native workers. Adjusting for detailed job-related characteristics shows that the findings are unlikely to be driven by systematic differences in productivity between migrants and natives. Moreover, using industry-specific variation in the extent of the economic downturn, I demonstrate that layoff probabilities hardly differ across the less affected industries, but that the gap between migrants and natives increases with the magnitude of the shock. In the hardest-hit industries, job loss probability among migrants is three times higher than among natives. This confirms the hypothesis that firing discrimination puts additional pressure on the immigrant workforce in times of crisis.
Can exposure to celebrities from stigmatized groups reduce prejudice? To address this question, we study the case of Mohamed Salah, a visibly Muslim, elite soccer player. Using data on hate crime reports throughout England and 15 million tweets from British soccer fans, we find that after Salah joined Liverpool F.C., hate crimes in the Liverpool area dropped by 16% compared with a synthetic control, and Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of posting anti-Muslim tweets relative to fans of other top-flight clubs. An original survey experiment suggests that the salience of Salah’s Muslim identity enabled positive feelings toward Salah to generalize to Muslims more broadly. Our findings provide support for the parasocial contact hypothesis—indicating that positive exposure to out-group celebrities can spark real-world behavioral changes in prejudice.
Using the Swiss Household Panel, we examine whether experiencing relationship dissolution, unemployment, or a health crisis increases support for the Swiss People's Party (SVP). Fixed effects models shows this to be the case. Changes in financial resources, attitudes or trust in the government cannot explain this effect. Finally, we test whether increased support for the SVP following these events is more likely among individuals with lower trust and income levels and with views similar of those of the SVP. We find that individuals with traditional gender values are more likely to support the SVP after separation.
Can attitudes towards minorities, an important cultural trait, be changed? We show that the presence of African American soldiers in the UK during World War II reduced anti-minority prejudice, a result of the positive interactions which took place between soldiers and the local population. The change has been persistent: in locations in which more African American soldiers were posted there are fewer members of and voters for the UK’s leading far-right party, less implicit bias against blacks and fewer individuals professing racial prejudice, all measured around 2010. Our results point towards intergenerational transmission from parents to children as the most likely explanation.
Across Europe some individuals observe immigration with unease and feel threatened by immigrants. Most relevant surveys ask about ‘immigrants’ in the generic sense, but some differentiate between specific immigrant groups. This article uses 24 questions on potential neighbours to systematically vary the characteristics of immigrants in a representative survey in Switzerland, 2013. Respondents systematically consider immigrants from distant cultures and those more likely to receive welfare benefits as more threatening. At the same time, those who feel threatened by one kind of immigrants also tend to feel threatened by others: We can validly express opposition to immigrants in a single dimension. Questions about immigrants in the generic sense likely capture the right correlates, but they may miss differences in the level of threat evoked by different immigrants.
En varios países de la Europa occidental podemos encontrar sociedades con una composición multi-étnica que se refleja también en la composición de sus equipos nacionales de fútbol, los que cada vez alinean más jugadores de origen emigrante. Este artículo, con un énfasis principalmente empírico, analiza cómo los jugadores de fútbol con identidad nacional dual negocian su adhesión a su país de origen y al país de adopción futbolística. La investigación se plantea mediante tres casos de estudio situados en Alemania, Suiza y Francia en 2018. En estos casos se analiza la manera en que distintos futbolistas se han enfrentado a su identidad dual al jugar en la selección nacional de su país de adopción. El principal resultado de la investigación sugiere que, mientras la identidad nacional de los futbolistas parece no ser excesivamente relevante en las competiciones Europeas de clubes, no ocurre lo mismo con las selecciones nacionales. Jugadores con origen emigrante encuentran tremendas dificultades para expresar, de manera sencilla o espontánea, su identidad dual dentro del fútbol de selecciones. La principal contribución teórica del artículo es una conceptualización del proceso por el que una gran parte de la opinión pública y del discurso de los medios de comunicación, incluso en países con una amplia tradición de acogida de emigrantes como Francia, Suiza o Alemania, tienen dificultades para entender las complejidades de las identidades duales. En esos casos, los futbolistas se ven forzados a hacer pública, de manera clara y expresa, su lealtad hacia los ‘colores’ de su país sobre el terreno de juego.
Although the number of multiracial and multiethnic Japanese who are socially recognised and identified as haafu (mixed) has increased due to a rise in intermarriages, the identities and experiences of mixed persons in Japan are seldom critically analysed. Based on interviews with 29 multiracial and multiethnic individuals residing in Japan, this article explores not only how multiracial and multiethnic Japanese identify themselves but also how they feel they are identified by others in society. The analysis shows that multiracial and multiethnic persons self-identify in a way that goes beyond either-or categories and the binary notions of Japanese/foreigner. It also reveals how both multiracial and multiethnic persons face a gap between self-identity and ascribed identity and that they negotiate this gap in various ways. However, the gap and the negotiation process that multiracial persons face differ to those of multiethnic persons. Multiracial persons whose mixedness is phenotypically visible experience more constraints in their ethnic options and have more difficulty in passing as Japanese, whereas multiethnic persons whose mixedness is invisible can pass as Japanese more easily but face constraints in their ethnic option to be identified as mixed and in claiming their multiethnic background.
Social scientists have shown how easily individuals are moved to exclude outgroup members. Can we foster inclusion instead? This study leverages one of the most significant humanitarian crises of our time to test whether, and under what conditions, American citizens adopt more inclusionary behavior toward Syrian refugees. We conduct a nationally representative survey of over 5,000 American citizens in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election and experimentally test whether a perspective-taking exercise increases inclusionary behavior in the form of an anonymous letter supportive of refugees to be sent to the 45th President of the United States. Our results indicate that the perspective-taking message increases the likelihood of writing such a positive letter by two to five percentage points. By contrast, an informational message had no significant effect on letter writing. The effect of the perspective-taking exercise occurs in the short run only, manifests as a behavioral rather than an attitudinal response, and is strongest among Democrats. However, this effect also appears in the subset of Republican respondents, suggesting that efforts to promote perspective taking may move to action a wide cross-section of individuals.
Does ethnic diversity increase or reduce white threat perceptions? Meta-analyses help orient a field and communicate findings to policymakers. We report the results of a meta-analysis of studies measuring the relationship between ethnic context and both opposition to immigration and support for anti-immigration parties. Our analysis attempts to be exhaustive, and is based on 171 post-1995 studies averaging 25,000 observations each, a knowledge base of over 4 million data points. We find a linear association between ethnic change and elevated threat. However, for diversity levels, the relationship between ethnic context and threat is nonlinear. This takes the form of a 'wave', with higher diversity predicting threat responses at the smallest and largest scales, whereas in units of 5000–10,000 people (such as tracts or neighbourhoods), diversity is associated with reduced threat.
We present a broad review of all studies having tested for discrimination against minority ethnic groups in the rental housing market by the correspondence testing method. We perform a meta-analysis of correspondence tests from 25 separate studies conducted in OECD countries between 2006 and 2017, containing more than 300 estimates of effects and representing a total of more than 110,000 e-mails sent to private landlords or real-estate agents. In addition to presenting overall results of recent studies, we focus on subgroups of specific correspondence tests in order to highlight the differences in ethnicity, gender, type of landlords, procedure, continent, and type of information provided in applications. We provide evidence that both gender and ethnic discrimination occur in the rental housing market in OECD countries, such that applicants with minority-sounding names and male names are discriminated against (especially Arab/Muslim applicants). Thus, ethnic majority women are the most favored in this market in OECD countries while minority men are the most disadvantaged. Moreover, we show the existence of interactions between ethnic and gender discrimination: gender discrimination is greater for minority-sounding names than for majority-sounding names. Finally, it seems that real-estate agents discriminate significantly less against minority applicants than private landlords do. This would seem to be at least in part because private landlords display significant statistical discrimination while real-estate agents do not. These results are robust to the estimation methods used (random effects, fixed-effects, and unrestricted weighted least squares methods).
Discrimination is long seen as a meaningful factor for ethnic inequalities on rental housing markets. Yet empirically, the extent of discrimination is still debatable. For the first time, this article provides a quantitative meta-analysis of field experiments (in person audits and correspondence tests) that were run over the last four decades in the United States, Canada and Europe (N = 71). Special focus is given to a possible inflation of effect sizes by publication bias; to time trends; and to evidence for statistical discrimination. Taken together, nearly all experiments document the occurrence of ethnic discrimination. Effect sizes are inflated by publication bias, but there is still substantial evidence left once the bias is removed. The analysis reveals a consistent decline in the extent of discrimination over time, from moderate levels of discrimination in the 1970s and 1980s, up to only small but still statistically significant levels in the 1990s and 2000s. A significant part of the discriminatory behaviour can be attributed to missing information about the social status of applicants, which supports theories on statistical discrimination. It is discussed how future research could move our knowledge on the underlying mechanisms forward.
We report the results of an intervention that targeted anti-Roma sentiment in Hungary using an online perspective-taking game. We evaluated the impact of this intervention using a randomized experiment in which a sample of young adults played this perspective-taking game, or an unrelated online game. Participation in the perspective-taking game markedly reduced prejudice, with an effect-size equivalent to half the difference between voters of the far-right and the center-right party. The effects persisted for at least a month, and, as a byproduct, the intervention also reduced antipathy toward refugees, another stigmatized group in Hungary, and decreased vote intentions for Hungary's overtly racist, far-right party by 10%. Our study offers a proof-of-concept for a general class of interventions that could be adapted to different settings and implemented at low costs.
Significance
Many scholars have argued that discrimination in American society has decreased over time, while others point to persisting race and ethnic gaps and subtle forms of prejudice. The question has remained unsettled due to the indirect methods often used to assess levels of discrimination. We assess trends in hiring discrimination against African Americans and Latinos over time by analyzing callback rates from all available field experiments of hiring, capitalizing on the direct measure of discrimination and strong causal validity of these studies. We find no change in the levels of discrimination against African Americans since 1989, although we do find some indication of declining discrimination against Latinos. The results document a striking persistence of racial discrimination in US labor markets.
Ethnic and gender discrimination in a variety of markets has been documented in several populations. We conducted an online field experiment to examine ethnic and gender discrimination in the private rental housing market in Finland. We sent 1459 inquiries regarding 800 apartments. We compared responses to standardized apartment inquiries including fictive Arabic-sounding, Finnish-sounding or Swedish-sounding female or male names. We found evidence of discrimination against Arabic-sounding names and male names. Inquiries including Arabic-sounding male names had the lowest probability of receiving a response, receiving a response to about 16% of the inquiries made, while Finnish-sounding female names received a response to 42% of the inquires. We did not find any evidence of the landlord's gender being associated with the discrimination pattern. The findings suggest that both ethnic and gender discrimination occur in the private rental housing market in Finland.
Theories of intermarriage as a key indicator of integration are typically premised upon the union of white and non-white individuals (that is, 'single race'), and we know very little about what happens in the unions of multiracial people, who are the children of intermarried couples. But what constitutes intermarriage for multiracial people? I argue that there are no appropriate conventions for how we characterise endogamous or exogamous relationships for multiracial people. Rather, it is more fruitful to investigate the meanings and significance that multiracial individuals attribute to their partners' ethnic and racial backgrounds, and how these meanings are translated in their roles as parents and in their family lives more generally.
Anti-black prejudice affects how some citizens evaluate black candidates. What does it take to reduce the role of prejudice in these evaluations? Using logical implications of relevant psychological phenomena, this article shows that repeated exposure to counter-stereotypical information is insufficient to reduce evaluative prejudice. Instead, citizens must associate this prejudice with adverse effects for themselves in contexts that induce them to rethink their existing racial beliefs. These findings explain important disagreements in empirical prejudice research, as only some empirical research designs supply the conditions for prejudice reduction predicted here. This study also clarifies why similarly situated citizens react so differently to counter-stereotypical information. In sum, we find that prejudice change is possible, but in a far narrower set of circumstances than many scholars claim.
In recent years, the concept of boundaries has been at the center of influential research agendas in anthropology, history, political science, social psychology, and sociology. This article surveys some of these developments while describing the value added provided by the concept, particularly concerning the study of relational processes. It discusses literatures on (a) social and collective identity; (b) class, ethnic/racial, and gender/sex inequality; (c) professions, knowledge, and science; and (d) communities, national identities, and spatial boundaries. It points to similar processes at work across a range of institutions and social locations. It also suggests paths for further developments, focusing on the relationship between social and symbolic boundaries, cultural mechanisms for the production of boundaries, difference and hybridity, and cultural membership and group classifications.
How do social group boundaries evolve? Does the appearance of a new out-group change the in-group’s perceptions of other out-groups? We introduce a conceptual framework of context-dependent categorization in which exposure to one minority leads to recategorization of other minorities as in- or out-groups depending on perceived distances across groups. We test this framework by studying how Mexican immigration to the United States affected white Americans’ attitudes and behaviors toward Black Americans. We combine survey and crime data with a difference-in-differences design and an instrumental variables strategy. Consistent with the theory, Mexican immigration improves whites’ racial attitudes, increases support for pro-Black government policies, and lowers anti-Black hate crimes while simultaneously increasing prejudice against Hispanics. Results generalize beyond Hispanics and Blacks, and a survey experiment provides direct evidence for recategorization. Our findings imply that changes in the size of one group can affect the entire web of intergroup relations in diverse societies.
Can corrective information change citizens’ misperceptions about immigrants and subsequently lead to favorable immigration opinions? While prior studies from the USA document how corrections about the size of minority populations fail to change citizens’ immigration-related opinions, they do not examine how other facts that speak to immigrants’ cultural or economic dependency rates can influence immigration policy opinions. To extend earlier work, we conducted a large-scale survey experiment fielded to a nationally representative sample of Danes. We randomly expose participants to information about non-Western immigrants’ (1) welfare dependency rate, (2) crime rate, and (3) proportion of the total population. We find that participants update their factual beliefs in light of correct information, but reinterpret the information in a highly selective fashion, ultimately failing to change their policy preferences.
How can we explain the rise in diffuse political support during the Covid-19 pandemic? Recent research has argued that the lockdown measures generated political support. In contrast, I argue that the intensity of the pandemic rallied people around political institutions. Collective angst in the face of exponentially rising Covid-19 cases depresses the usual cognitive evaluations of institutions, and leads citizens to rally around existing intuitions as a lifebuoy. Using a representative Dutch household survey conducted over March 2020, I compare the lockdown effect to the dynamic of the pandemic. I find that the lockdown effect is driven by pre-existing time trends. Accounting for nonlinearities in time makes the lockdown effect disappear. In contrast, more flexible modelling techniques reveal a robust effect of Covid-19 infections on political trust. In line with an anxiety effect, I find that standard determinants of political trust – such as economic evaluations and social trust – lose explanatory power as the pandemic spreads. This speaks to an emotionally driven rally effect that pushes cognitive evaluations to the background.
This article proposes doubly robust estimators for the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) in difference-in-differences (DID) research designs. In contrast to alternative DID estimators, the proposed estimators are consistent if either (but not necessarily both) a propensity score or outcome regression working models are correctly specified. We also derive the semiparametric efficiency bound for the ATT in DID designs when either panel or repeated cross-section data are available, and show that our proposed estimators attain the semiparametric efficiency bound when the working models are correctly specified. Furthermore, we quantify the potential efficiency gains of having access to panel data instead of repeated cross-section data. Finally, by paying particular attention to the estimation method used to estimate the nuisance parameters, we show that one can sometimes construct doubly robust DID estimators for the ATT that are also doubly robust for inference. Simulation studies and an empirical application illustrate the desirable finite-sample performance of the proposed estimators. Open-source software for implementing the proposed policy evaluation tools is available.
During the 2018 World Cup in Russia, two Kosovo-born Swiss players stirred controversy when they flashed a double-headed eagle gesture during a contentious win over Serbia. The gesture was an assertion of ethnic Albanian pre-eminence in Kosovo and a rhetorical strike against the Serbians, who still claim ownership over Kosovo even ten years after its declaration of independence. The gesture sparked worldwide media coverage and prompted punishments by FIFA (the World Cup's governing body), which legislates against overt political expression during matches. In this article, I will examine the double-headed eagle gesture as an example of the body's unique capacity to perform multiple political interventions at once. Not only did it transmit a contentious history, it also undermined the anti-political boundaries erected around the scenarios of transnational combat engendered by FIFA, highlighted anti-immigrant sentiments still festering across Europe, and illustrated the communicative powers that elite players can access through their goal celebrations. Considering these valences supports my reading of this case as symbolic of the sort of ruptures produced by competing impulses operating in Europe today, one working for the affirmation of the union, the other for its dissolution.
Exclusionary attitudes—prejudice toward outgroups and opposition to policies that promote their well-being—are presenting challenges to democratic societies worldwide. Drawing on insights from psychology, we argue that non-judgmentally exchanging narratives in interpersonal conversations can facilitate durable reductions in exclusionary attitudes. We support this argument with evidence from three pre-registered field experiments targeting exclusionary attitudes toward unauthorized immigrants and transgender people. In these experiments, 230 canvassers conversed with 6,869 voters across 7 US locations. In Experiment 1, face-to-face conversations deploying arguments alone had no effects on voters’ exclusionary immigration policy or prejudicial attitudes, but otherwise identical conversations also including the non-judgmental exchange of narratives durably reduced exclusionary attitudes for at least four months (d = 0.08). Experiments 2 and 3, targeting transphobia, replicate these findings and support the scalability of this strategy (ds = 0.08, 0.04). Non-judgmentally exchanging narratives can help overcome the resistance to persuasion often encountered in discussions of these contentious topics.
In recent decades, there has been a global rise in fear and hostility towards asylum seekers. Xenophobia – or ‘fear of the stranger’ – has become a pressing issue in a range of disciplines. Several causal models have been proposed to explain this fear and the hostility it produces. However, disciplinary boundaries have limited productive dialogue between these approaches. This article draws connections between four of the main theories that have been advanced in the existing literature: (1) false belief accounts, (2) xenophobia as new racism, (3) sociobiological explanations and (4) xenophobia as an effect of capitalist globalisation. While this article cannot provide an exhaustive review of theories of xenophobia, it aims to present a useful comparative introduction to current research into the social aspects of xenophobia, particularly as these theories have been applied to asylum seekers. In bringing together divergent models, it also invites interdisciplinary engagement.
Previous research shows that people commonly exaggerate the size of minority populations. Theories of intergroup threat predict that the larger people perceive minority groups to be, the less favorably they feel toward them. We investigate whether correcting Americans’ misperceptions about one such population—immigrants—affects related attitudes. We confirm that non-Hispanic Americans overestimate the percentage of the population that is foreign-born or in the United States without authorization. However, in seven separate survey experiments over 11 years, we find that providing accurate information does little to affect attitudes toward immigration, even though it does reduce the perceived size of the foreign-born population. This is true even when people’s misperceptions are explicitly corrected. These results call into question a potential cognitive mechanism that could underpin intergroup threat theory. Misperceptions about the size of minority groups may be a consequence, rather than a cause, of attitudes toward those groups. © 2018 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.
Cambridge Core - Comparative Politics - Cultural Evolution - by Ronald F. Inglehart
Significant theories of democratic accountability hinge on how political campaigns affect Americans’ candidate choices. We argue that the best estimate of the effects of campaign contact and advertising on Americans’ candidates choices in general elections is zero. First, a systematic meta-analysis of 40 field experiments estimates an average effect of zero in general elections. Second, we present nine original field experiments that increase the statistical evidence in the literature about the persuasive effects of personal contact tenfold. These experiments’ average effect is also zero. In both existing and our original experiments, persuasive effects only appear to emerge in two rare circumstances. First, when candidates take unusually unpopular positions and campaigns invest unusually heavily in identifying persuadable voters. Second, when campaigns contact voters long before election day and measure effects immediately—although this early persuasion decays. These findings contribute to ongoing debates about how political elites influence citizens’ judgments.
Discrimination against particular groups in the housing market increases search costs and limits optimal matching, thus resulting in economic and social inefficiencies. This paper tests for the existence of discrimination in the French rental market against individuals with names which signal their connection to five immigrant groups (Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Turkey, Poland, Portugal-Spain) by implementing an online field study using one of France's largest online advertisements website. The results show that applicants with foreign sounding names coming from Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Turkey are 16 to 22 percentage points less likely to receive a response than applicants with French names or names associated with Poland, Portugal or Spain. In addition, when applicants with foreign sounding names from any origin receive a response, it is significantly more likely to be negative or include a request for more information than responses to emails including French sounding names. Finally, we find some geographic differences in response rate differentials that are correlated with differences in the local income and share of immigrants. This provides evidence that landlords use names as a proxy for economic and other sociodemographic characteristics.
Not just turnout, but turnaround matters
In the last several U.S. presidential elections, the campaign mantra has focused on making sure that voters already aligned with one's candidate do get out to vote. There is a long history of unsuccessful efforts to change people's attitudes. Nevertheless, Broockman and Kalla conducted a field experiment showing that Miami voters shifted their attitudes toward transgender individuals and maintained those changed positions for 3 months (see the Perspective by Paluck).
Science , this issue p. 220 ; see also p. 147
For almost 50 years field experiments have been used to study ethnic and racial discrimination in hiring decisions, consistently reporting high rates of discrimination against minority applicants – including immigrants – irrespective of time, location, or minority groups tested. While Peter A. Riach and Judith Rich [2002. “Field Experiments of Discrimination in the Market Place.” The Economic Journal 112 (483): F480–F518] and Judith Rich [2014. “What Do Field Experiments of Discrimination in Markets Tell Us? A Meta Analysis of Studies Conducted since 2000.” In Discussion Paper Series. Bonn: IZA] provide systematic reviews of existing field experiments, no study has undertaken a meta-analysis to examine the findings in the studies reported. In this article, we present a meta-analysis of 738 correspondence tests in 43 separate studies conducted in OECD countries between 1990 and 2015. In addition to summarising research findings, we focus on groups of specific tests to ascertain the robustness of findings, emphasising differences across countries, gender, and economic contexts. Moreover we examine patterns of discrimination, by drawing on the fact that the groups considered in correspondence tests and the contexts of testing vary to some extent. We focus on first- and second-generation immigrants, differences between specific minority groups, the implementation of EU directives, and the length of job application packs.
Representing both traditional and emerging perspectives, this multi-disiplinary and truly international volume will serve as a seminal resource for students and scholars. © John. F. Dovidio, Miles Hewstone, Peter Glick and Victoria M. Esses 2010.
This unique book is the first comprehensive guide to the discovery, analysis, and evaluation of natural experiments – an increasingly popular methodology in the social sciences. Thad Dunning provides an introduction to key issues in causal inference, including model specification, and emphasizes the importance of strong research design over complex statistical analysis. Surveying many examples of standard natural experiments, regression-discontinuity designs, and instrumental-variables designs, Dunning highlights both the strengths and potential weaknesses of these methods, aiding researchers in better harnessing the promise of natural experiments while avoiding the pitfalls. Dunning also demonstrates the contribution of qualitative methods to natural experiments and proposes new ways to integrate qualitative and quantitative techniques. Chapters complete with exercises, and appendices covering specialized topics such as cluster-randomized natural experiments, make this an ideal teaching tool as well as a valuable book for professional researchers.
Identity Economics provides an important and compelling new way to understand human behavior, revealing how our identities--and not just economic incentives--influence our decisions. In 1995, economist Rachel Kranton wrote future Nobel Prize-winner George Akerlof a letter insisting that his most recent paper was wrong. Identity, she argued, was the missing element that would help to explain why people--facing the same economic circumstances--would make different choices. This was the beginning of a fourteen-year collaboration--and of Identity Economics. The authors explain how our conception of who we are and who we want to be may shape our economic lives more than any other factor, affecting how hard we work, and how we learn, spend, and save. Identity economics is a new way to understand people's decisions--at work, at school, and at home. With it, we can better appreciate why incentives like stock options work or don't; why some schools succeed and others don't; why some cities and towns don't invest in their futures--and much, much more.
This study uses a field experiment to study bias against living with Arab American women, a group whose position in the U.S. race system remains uncertain. We developed fictitious female white and Arab American identities and used the audit method to respond to 560 roommate-wanted advertisements in four metro areas: Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, and Houston. To focus on social—rather than purely economic—biases, all responses identified the sender as college-educated and employed and were written in grammatically correct English. We compare the number of replies received, finding that Arab-origin names receive about 40 percent fewer replies. We then model variation in discrimination rates by proximity to mosques, geographic concentration of mosques, and the percentage of Arabs living in a census tract so as to test ethnic competition theory and the contact hypothesis. In Los Angeles and New York, greater discrimination occurred in neighborhoods with the highest concentration of mosques.
The regulation of immigration and how immigrants are treated once they settle in a country are fundamental aspects of national policy. Existing descriptions of the developments of immigration and integration policy have either provided a limited snapshot, or relied on the author's subjective assessment of how policies developed over time. In this research note, we provide a systematic and truly historical assessment of immigration and integration policy in Switzerland: between the foundation of modern Switzerland in 1848 and 2014. The most recent MIPEX questionnaire was used to provide a systematic and multidimensional portrait of how immigration and integration policy has evolved in Switzerland. Using these data, we identify three distinctive periods (expansive, restricting, expanding), and argue that the changes in policies reflect the fact that immigrants are increasingly accepted as a permanent feature of Swiss society.Ein fundamentaler Aspekt nationaler Politik ist die Regulierung von Immigration und wie Immigranten behandelt werden, wenn sie sich im Land niederlassen. Bestehende Beschriebe wie sich die Immigrations- und Integrationspolitik der Schweiz entwickelte waren entweder beschränkte Momentaufnahmen oder abhängig von der subjektiven Einschätzung der Autoren wie sich die Politik veränderte. In dieser Research Note präsentieren eine systematische und wahrhaftig historische Einschätzung, wie sich die Immigrations- und Integrationspolitik entwickelte: zwischen der Gründung der modernen Schweiz in 1848 und 2014. Die aktuellen MIPEX Fragebogen wurden verwendet um ein systematisches und mehrdimensionales Bild zu zeichnen, wie sich die Immigrations- und Integrationspolitik der Schweiz entwickelte. Mit diesen Daten identifizieren wir drei ausgeprägte Perioden (expansiv, restriktiv, expandierend) und argumentieren dass diese Änderungen widerspiegeln, dass Immigranten und Immigrantinnen vermehrt als fester Bestandteil der Schweizer Gesellschaft betrachtet werden.
The role of “genes” on political attitudes has gained attention across disciplines. However, person-specific experiences have yet to be incorporated into models that consider genetic influences. Relying on a gene-environment interplay approach, this study explicates how life events, such as losing one's job or suffering a financial loss, influence economic policy attitudes. The results indicate genetic and environmental variance on support for unions, immigration, capitalism, socialism, and property tax is moderated by financial risks. Changes in the magnitude of genetic influences, however, are temporary. After two years, the phenotypic effects of the life events remain on most attitudes, but changes in the sources of individual differences do not. Univariate twin models that estimate the independent contributions of genes and environment on the variation of attitudes appear to provide robust baseline indicators of the sources of individual differences. These estimates, however, are not event or day specific. In this way, genetic influences add stability, while environment cues change, and this process is continually updated.
Discrimination in the housing market may create large economic inefficiencies and unfair individual outcomes, but is very difficult to measure. To circumvent the problems with unobserved heterogeneity, most recent studies use the correspondence testing approach (i.e. sending fictitious inquiries to landlords). In this study, we generalize the existing methodology in order to facilitate a test of to what extent the measured degree of discrimination depends on applicant, landlord/apartment, and regional characteristics. To show how this more general methodology can be implemented, we investigate the effects of gender, ethnicity, age, and employment status in the Swedish rental market for apartments. Our results confirm the existence of widespread discrimination against some of the groups, but also show that the degree of discrimination varies substantially with landlord, apartment, and regional characteristics. This heterogeneity highlights the importance of using a broad approach when conducting correspondence studies. Our results also allow us to interpret the nature of discrimination and how it relates to segregation and geographical sorting.
Primordialist and constructivist authors have debated the nature of ethnicity "as such" and therefore failed to explain why its characteristics vary so dramatically across cases, displaying different degrees of social closure, political salience, cultural distinctiveness, and historical stability. The author introduces a multilevel process theory to understand how these characteristics are generated and transformed over time. The theory assumes that ethnic boundaries are the outcome of the classificatory struggles and negotiations between actors situated in a social field. Three characteristics of a field - the institutional order, distribution of power, and political networks determine which actors will adopt which strategy of ethnic boundary making. The author then discusses the conditions under which these negotiations will lead to a shared understanding of the location and meaning of boundaries. The nature of this consensus explains the particular characteristics of an ethnic boundary. A final section identifies endogenous and exogenous mechanisms of change.
This project explores the impact of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and the resulting high levels of exposure to a positive, counter-stereotypic Black exemplar, on prejudice and stereotyping among non-Black participants. We found dramatically decreased levels of implicit anti-Black prejudice and stereotyping as compared with bias observed previously at the same institutions and in the literature. Providing some insight why the bias was reduced, Study 1 demonstrated that participants had positive Black exemplars come to mind or anticipated that other people have positive exemplars come to mind when they thought of Black people and this was associated with low levels of racial prejudice. Our second study revealed that participants who had qualities strongly associated with Obama as a political figure (e.g., president) activated when they were primed with “Black” had lower levels of implicit prejudice. These findings indicate that the extensive exposure to Obama resulted in a drop in implicit bias.