Backlash to Anti-Hate-Crime Policy: Evidence from an Online RCT

See experimental design section.

2026-08-10

2026-08-15

Exposure to anti-hate-crime legislation
Moral Conviction
Hate Crime Attitudes

Exposure to anti-hate crime legislation is a binary: participants in the control group are asked to read a dictionary and scientific definition of hate crime. Participants in the treatment group additionally read a text explaining UK Anti-Hate-Crime legislation.

Moral conviction is constructed from 3 questions based on Skitka et al. (2021):

A: The government and public institutions have a responsibility to reduce unequal treatment and unequal outcomes resulting from discrimination affecting some groups in the UK.
1 = strongly disagree
2 = disagree
3 = neither agree nor disagree
4 = agree
5 = strongly agree

B: Thinking about your feelings about this issue: To what extent are your feelings about this issue a reflection of your core moral values and convictions?
1 = not at all
2 = slightly
3 = moderately
4 = much
5 = very much

C: To what extent are your feelings about this issue deeply connected to your beliefs about “right” and “wrong”?
1 = not at all
2 = slightly
3 = moderately
4 = much
5 = very much


The dependent variable 'hate crime attitudes' is measured using the Universal Hate Crime Beliefs Scale (HCBS-U) (Bender et al., 2025) and an Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998).

Hypothesis: (Backlash Effect)
The effect of exposure to anti-hate-crime laws on Hate Crime Attitudes will depend on policy alignment of moral conviction and may eventually reverse with strong policy adverse moral conviction.

The study uses an between-subjects randomised online survey experiment. After completing a pre-test questionnaire on demographics and moral convictions, participants are randomly assigned to a treatment or control group and read a short informational text about hate crime. The treatment group reads an additional paragraph on anti-hate-crime legislation. Participants then complete an Implicit Association Test (IAT) and a questionnaire measuring approval of statements related to hate crime.

Not available

Participants complete the same otree app and on the information page are randomly shown either the treatment text or the control text. The assigned condition is captured as binary variable.

Treatment is assigned at the individual level.

No

No clusters

A maximum of 504 participants will be recruited through Prolific using its quota-sampling based on political affiliation (168 left- 168 centre - 168 right). The sample collection consists of two phases. Phase 1: 336 participants are recruited using Prolifics quota-sampling based on political affiliation: 168 left-leaning and 168 right-leaning. I expect collecting only left- and right-leaning political affilation to increase variation in the moral conviction moderator. Moral Conviction is here treated as a binary. If Phase 1 provides no support for Hypothesis 2, collecting centre-leaning participants is unlikely to be informative. I proceed to Phase 2 if the interaction is in the expected direction and the one-sided p-value is below 0.05 for at least one of the two hate-crime-attitude outcomes. Phase 2: 168 participants are recruited using Prolifics quota-sampling based on political affiliation: 168 centre-leaning.

~50% of participants in treatment group / ~50% in control group

Phase 1: With N = 336, 80% power and one-sided α=.05, the minimum detectable difference in treatment effects between low- and high-moral-conviction groups is approximately 0.54 SD. Total sample: With N = 504, 80% power, and two-sided α = .05, the minimum detectable standardized treatment * moral-conviction interaction is approximately 0.25 SD per one-SD increase in moral conviction.