What Convinces Majority Groups of Minorities’ Experiences of Discrimination?

• In Event: Group-Based Reasoning, Prejudice, and Political Discrimination

Abstract

One route for disadvantaged minorities to become successful in advancing their cause as a group is to convince majorities/dominant groups about the adversity they experience in order to potentially gain their political support. This in turn raises the question of which types of arguments and evidence minorities may marshal to make majority group members acknowledge their situation. Apart from one recent study (Haaland and Roth Forthcoming), we know very little about what works in this regard.

In this paper, we seek to answer four interrelated questions regarding the effectiveness of different forms of evidence of discrimination of immigrants on natives' view on discrimination. First, as our first-order question we study how different types of evidence shape concerns about discrimination among the native-born. Second, having demonstrated an effect of specific types of evidence on concerns about discrimination of immigrants, we study whether the effect of these forms of evidence extends to attitudes toward anti-discrimination policies. Third, extending this logic further, we also study whether evidence of discrimination has an effect on actual behavior toward the out-group in question in terms of donations to a charity furthering immigrant causes. Fourth and lastly, using open-ended responses we investigate by which psychological processes---through cognition or affect ---evidence of discrimination influences concerns over discrimination of immigrants.

We address our research questions in two experimental studies (n=1429 and n=3891), embedded in public opinion surveys in Denmark, testing several pre-registered hypotheses regarding the efficacy of different forms of evidence of discrimination. Specifically, we test evidence based on a (i) published audit study showing discrimination of immigrants, and (ii) a personal story of explicit discrimination reported in a newspaper. Importantly, to ensure high ecological validity, the experimental treatments are based on real evidence advanced in the public debate in Denmark. The Danish context is, ceteris paribus, a hard case for finding effects of the treatments given the continued political salience of the immigration issue, which implies higher crystallization (and hence resistance to change) of attitudes and perceptions on this topic.

We report several important findings. First, compared to the control condition, both the audit study and the personal story significantly increases concerns about discrimination of immigrants, but the personal story is significantly more effective. Second, the effect of both treatments extends beyond concerns about discrimination to (i) support for anti-discrimination policies and (ii) behavioral support for immigrant causes. Third, using open-ended responses, we find that the effect of the personal story is to a significant extent driven by positive affect, whereas this is not the case for the audit study.

Our results have important implications for both the academic literature and the wider public debate. Most fundamentally, we provide empirical evidence on the under-research question of what shapes ethnic majorities’ concerns about discrimination of ethnic minorities, and thereby speak to the effectiveness of different minority-group strategies for advancing their cause as a group. Theoretically, our study pinpoints affect as an alternative pathway to changing majorities’ concern about discrimination of minorities, which is complementary to the primary focus on the cognitive (informational) pathway in the literature. Lastly, in substantive terms, our results suggest cautious optimism for raising awareness about, and potentially reducing, discrimination by showing that it is possible to change majority perceptions of, and opinions about, a highly politicized group's experiences.

Authors

• Clara Vandeweerdt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Peter Thisted Dinesen, University College London

• Kim Mannemar Sønderskov, Aarhus University