Collective Rituals and Nation-Building: A Youth Camp Experiment in India

2022-12-19

2022-12-31

Endline survey one month after the camps end:

SOCIAL PREFERENCES
- Dictator game with Hindu/Muslim stranger (2 games)
- [campers only] Dictator game with Hindu/Muslim teammate and Hindu/Muslim non-teammate from the same camp (4 games)
- Willingness to plank: one with performance-related pay for 4 Muslims and 4 Hindus (for campers, randomly selected from non-teammates at same camp, for control, randomly selected from control), one with performance-related pay for self (with randomly assigned piece rate: INR 0 / 2 / 10 per 5 seconds)
- Public goods game with camp teammates (for control group: pseudo-teammates selected from the control group)
- [campers only] Self-reported willingness to do anything for the other campers

WILLINGNESS TO INTERACT
- Names of five closest friends (to be coded as Muslim- vs. Hindu-sounding)
- [campers only] Select friends from the camp
- [campers only] Select teammates spent time with in the past two weeks
- Willingness to play (as in Rao 2019): with Hindu/Muslim stranger

IDENTITY
- Self-report whether more attached to being an Indian vs. being a Hindu/Muslim
- Answer to: How proud are you to be Indian?
- Choice between Indian vs. Hindu/Muslim identity fridge magnet

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ATTITUDES
- Self-report whether willing to marry outgroup member, or willing to grant citizenship to an immigrant outgroup member
- Thermometer ratings for Narendra Modi, Mahatma Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, people from different countries (Nepal, England, Bangladesh, Pakistan)
- Ratings of political systems, and choice of best political system
- Support for reservation for Muslims
- Political issue importance

[Update January 2024] Phone survey one year after the camps end [note: we added these one-year follow-up details to pre-registration after surveying ~50 of 412 respondents to finalize question wording]:
- Same well-being measures as in the first endline (happiness, social life, PHQ-8)
- Names of five closest friends (to be coded as Muslim- vs. Hindu-sounding)

Measurement during the camps (primarily for mechanisms):
- Daily question cards completed by all campers with four questions on happiness, identity fusion, friendships with teammates, and level of excitement during the camp.
- Daily surveys on tablets completed by 12 campers per camp per day with questions on: identity fusion, friendships, emotions, self-esteem, emotional synchrony
- Data on camp activities recorded by observers, including: team photographs, engagement with rituals, organic (unplanned) rituals, captains chosen by teams (for sports)
- Richer measurement during specific activities: voting patterns during mock elections, performance and beliefs about teammates during structured game, group performance measures

Endline survey one month after the camps end:

WELLBEING
- Self-reported social isolation, happiness
- PHQ-9 depression scale (without suicidal ideation)

BELIEFS ABOUT OTHERS
- Predict whether people volunteered at baseline (predict for a group with 4 Muslims and 1 Hindu, and a group with 4 Hindus and 1 Muslim)
- [campers only] Predict whether teammates volunteered

POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE
- Constitution defines India as what type of republic?
- Who was India’s first prime minister?

ATTITUDES
- Agreement with masculinity norms (3 questions)

OTHER
- Self-reported WTP to attend a similar future camp

[Update January 2024] Phone survey one year after the camps end [note: we added these one-year follow-up details to pre-registration after surveying ~50 of 412 respondents to finalise question wording]:
- Self-report whether more attached to being an Indian vs. being a Hindu/Muslim
- [campers only] Self-reported willingness to do anything for the other campers
- Do you stay in touch with people you met at the camp? [Y/N]

We have recruited 412 boys (270 Hindus and 142 Muslims) aged 13 to 18 in West Bengal, and randomly assigned them to:

1. Regular Camp (N = 120) – free 12-day camp. The camp will include talks and games designed to impart democratic and universalist values.
2. Ritual Camp (N = 120) – free 12-day camp held concurrently with the Regular Camp. This camp will include the same activities, but will additionally contain “Durkheimian” ritualized features (flag-raising, synchronized singing and dancing, common uniforms, etc.)
3. Control Group (N = 172) – these boys were not invited to attend either camp.

The two camps will take place from December 19th to 31st, with a day off on December 25th. They will take place in the same location (a stadium), with one camp taking the morning session each day, and the other camp taking the afternoon session – alternating each day.

Our primary interest is in comparing endline outcomes between these groups, with (1) vs. (3) capturing the effect of the camp, and (1) vs. (2) capturing the effect of collective rituals. We will also pool (1) and (2), comparing with (3), for a higher-powered test of the effects of the two types of camps.

Those assigned to the camps have been randomly assigned to groups of 10 (24 groups of 10 in total, across the two camps). Most of the camp activities will be done in these groups. For each camp, groups have been randomly assigned such that:
- 6 groups have 5 Muslims and 5 Hindus each
- 6 groups have 2 Muslims and 8 Hindus each

This cross-cutting variation allows us to test for the effects of intergroup contact, and explore whether these effects differ by whether the camp has rituals or not.

For our analysis, we will run OLS regressions with randomization strata fixed effects, and a baseline-measured dependent variable when available. We will use robust standard errors when the unit of observation is the individual, and we will cluster standard errors at the individual-level when there are multiple observations per individual.

Randomization done in the office in STATA. Randomization to camps stratified by religion, wave (2 waves of randomization), and below- vs. above-median baseline feeling thermometer score for Narendra Modi. No stratification for randomization to groups within each camp.

Individual-level (with only one eligible boy per household).

No

412 boys.

412 boys.

120 boys in Regular Camp.
120 boys in Ritual Camp.
172 boys in Control Group.