Does Exposure to Ethnic Minorities Affect Support for Welfare Dualism? Evidence From a Field Experiment

Last registered on November 07, 2017

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Does Exposure to Ethnic Minorities Affect Support for Welfare Dualism? Evidence From a Field Experiment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000507
Initial registration date
September 11, 2014

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
September 11, 2014, 2:52 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
November 07, 2017, 10:01 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Oslo

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Institute for Social Research

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2014-08-01
End date
2015-09-01
Secondary IDs
Abstract
An influential argument on how ethnic diversity might undermine public goods production, cooperation and collective action rests on assumptions from sociological/social-psychological theories of group conflict. The core assumptions of this perspective are that people will develop social group identifications where ethnic similarities typically function as group boundaries. Negative views
on out-group members are caused by real or perceived competition between your in-group and out-groups over scarce resources such as rights and social status (see e.g. Bobo 1999; Semyonov, Raijman, and Gorodzeisky 2006).

The core assumptions and implications of conflict theory stand in stark contrast to those of the competing inter-group contact theory (see e.g. Pettigrew 1998). According to this perspective, prejudice and negative stereotyping of minorities might decline with contact with out-group members. Since the frequency of contact will increase with ethnic diversity, any negative effects of immigration on welfare state support caused by increased competition over resources might be o_-set by the positive consequences of increased contact with members of the minority group. While inter-group contact theory is frequently used to debunk the bleak perspective of conflict theory, it is often forgotten that contact theory proposes quite restrictive conditions for in what contexts contact will reduce majority-minority conflict: Contact will reduce tensions only if those in contact have equal status in the particular context, if they share common goals, if they are in a cooperative context, and if the contact takes place under some form of authority (see Pettigrew 1998).

The existing empirical literature on the consequences of ethnic diversity tends to overlook how important these different underlying assumptions are, and simply regress e.g. some indicator of views on diversity on an indicator of ethnic diversity (e.g. Senik, Stichnoth, and Van der Straeten 2009). The discrepancy between the theoretical and empirical model implies that the empirical estimates are not very informative about the importance of minority-majority contact. We take the underlying assumptions of contact theory more seriously than in the previous literature and test it in a setting where theory suggests it is most likely to hold. We also set up a research design with a random allocation to give our estimates a causal interpretation.

Specifically, we propose an explicit test of contact theory in a context where the strict assumptions of the theory is plausible, namely in the military. In fact, the initial inspiration and empirical support for contact theory is from a study of integration of Black soldiers into the US Army (see Pettigrew 1998). Soldiers of private rank have equal social status within the army, they share the common goals of the unit, they need to cooperate to solve their tasks, and contact takes place in a context with an explicit, enforcing authority. Moreover, the army is a promising venue to study social interaction since the soldiers cannot determine who they want to share rooms with and who they want to serve with. Thus, biases due to self-selection into social interactions based on own preferences (such as prejudice) are reduced, and we have exogenous exposure to contact with out-group members.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Finseraas, Henning and Andreas Kotsadam. 2017. " Does Exposure to Ethnic Minorities Affect Support for Welfare Dualism? Evidence From a Field Experiment." AEA RCT Registry. November 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.507-3.0
Former Citation
Finseraas, Henning and Andreas Kotsadam. 2017. " Does Exposure to Ethnic Minorities Affect Support for Welfare Dualism? Evidence From a Field Experiment." AEA RCT Registry. November 07. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/507/history/22978
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We provide the Norwegian armed forces With a formula that is used to allocate soldiers into rooms.
Intervention Start Date
2014-08-01
Intervention End Date
2014-09-25

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Attitudes toward welfare dualism
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
See the full pdf document.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
See the full pdf document.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Done by a computer.
Randomization Unit
Individuals are randomized but the unit of exposure is at room Level.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
150-210
Sample size: planned number of observations
1200-1600
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
4-8
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
The standardized minimum detactable effect is 0.3. See the full pdf document for details.
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
NSD-Norway
IRB Approval Date
2014-06-30
IRB Approval Number
XX
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Pre-Analysis Plan

MD5: 462f75660a9d6d930f2e6f1c67c9f405

SHA1: a99fcd65b60e4057fff568945844a0beb7a38fb6

Uploaded At: September 12, 2014

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
December 01, 2014, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
No
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
Citation

Reports & Other Materials