Structural Analysis of Xenophobia

We will randomly show different CNN news clips for 100 seconds. The treatment group will watch a potentially racially biased news clip about COVID-19. The control group will watch a neutral news clip on health advice.
In addition to the RCT, we will randomize the survey formats to understand their impact on the estimation. Half of survey sample will respond to a questionnaire using Likert scale and another half will respond to a questionnaire using Slider. Using pilot survey responses from two different formats, we will estimate the nonparametric densities of latent variables and we will discuss which survey method is better to apply the standard econometric techniques to study measurement errors.

2020-08-26

2020-09-09

We have three primary sets of outcome variables.
The first set of outcome variables is about anti-Asian sentiments. The second set of outcome variables is about perception about racism in the US. The third set of outcome variables is three measurements of discriminatory behaviors.

We collect multiple measurements for each set of outcome variables, not to cherry-pick the most responsive survey items later, but to apply nonparametric estimation techniques to estimate measurement errors. Having multiple measurements is one of the essential identifying assumptions.
The first set of outcome variables on anti-Asian sentiment is a shorter version of the realistic threat measure, intergroup anxiety and prejudice measures used in Stephan et al. (1999). The second set of outcome variables on perception about racism in the US is measured by asking how much respondents agree to five statements. The statements are (1) whether typical American citizens might feel annoyed at racial stereotype jokes, (2) whether typical American citizens will follow a manager with racial bias as long as the person delivers results, (3) whether a person who publicly claims to be a racist can maintain good social relationships with most people, (4) whether typical American citizens will tolerate racial bias to some degree, as long as it does not violate the law evidently, and (5) if a person refers to the novel corona virus as “China virus”, the person will face severe criticism.
The third set of outcome variables is about discriminatory actions. We will ask three questions: a donation question, a dictator game, and a petition question. The dictator game is an incentivized survey item with real money at stake, and the other two questions ask about intentions to donate and to sign a petition. In a donation question, we present descriptions about two organizations with opposing attitudes to Asians: the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council (A3PCON). Next, we ask to which organization and how much respondents are willing to donate if they are given $10. If they choose to donate to CIS, the racist action is coded as 1. In a dictator game, we randomly match respondents with two other survey participants, who responded to donate to the CIS and A3PCON, respectively. Next, we ask respondents to split $1 between themselves and their matched partners. To remove deception, we will randomly select 10% of survey sample and will make actual payment to survey participants based on responses. We will explain that their answers will not affect the probability of winning the lottery. We repeat dictator games twice with two different partners (CIS or A3PCON) to remove individual fixed effect, which includes generosity in sharing money with someone else. We randomize the order of two dictator games to remove any order effect. If survey respondents share more money with a partner who donated to CIS than with a partner who donated to A3PCON, the racist action is coded as 1. In the petition question, we present two different petition forms, with one urging to protect the United States’ interests from Chinese threats and another urging to protect safety and rights of Asian Americans in the US. We ask which petition survey participants would like to sign. If they choose to sign a petition to protect the US from Chinese threats, the racist action is coded as 1.


Reference
Stephan, Walter G., Oscar Ybarra, and Guy Bachman. "Prejudice toward immigrants 1." Journal of Applied Social Psychology 29.11 (1999): 2221-2237.

To screen out survey participants who pay little attention to the survey, we have inserted an attention check question just before implementing our video intervention. In an attention check question, we ask respondents how they are currently feeling, but we tell them to check only “None of the above” option in the middle of the question. Survey participants who fail to pay attention to our message and thus choose any other choices will be screened out.

To screen out survey participants who pay little attention to the survey, we have inserted an attention check question just before implementing our video intervention. In an attention check question, we ask respondents how they are currently feeling, but we tell them to check only “None of the above” option in the middle of the question. Survey participants who fail to pay attention to our message and thus choose any other choices will be screened out.

We randomize using a Qualtrics randomizer.

We do individual level randomization.

No

360 in pilot survey and 3000 in main survey.

360 in pilot survey and 3000 in main survey.

50% of sample is in treatment arm and 50% of sample is in control arm.

We will compute MDE using the pilot data, which is yet to be collected.