Experimental Design
The study aims to examine whether perceived social discrimination alters the preferences of U.S. households. We plan to focus on several of the most important preference primitives, as indicated by prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky 1979). Our key conjecture is that perceiving discrimination can influence individuals’ preferences that underpin their economic decisions because both direct and indirect observation of discrimination can impact psychological functioning, induce negative emotions, generate stress, impact one’s perceived social status, and reduce trust. To identify the impact of perceived discrimination on preferences, we will follow the psychology literature (e.g., Major, Kaiser, O’Brien, and McCoy (2007) and Bazley, Bonaparte, Korniotis, and Kumar (2023)) and randomly assign participants into one of two conditions at the beginning of the experiment: (i) pervasive discrimination or (ii) rare discrimination group. Individuals in the pervasive group are provided with a narrative that indicates that social discrimination against African Americans as a significant and common issue. Individuals in the rare discrimination group read a narrative that characterizes discrimination to be a declining facet of society.