Motivated Stereotypes

We will exogenously manipulate between-subjects whether subjects can personally benefit at the expense of an outgroup

2020-11-17

2020-12-23

We elicit participants’ belief about refugees’ attitudes towards equal rights for women.

We elicit participants’ belief about refugees’ attitudes towards equal rights for women. This outcome measure is elicited (in the same way) in all three treatment conditions. Respondents are informed that refugees arriving in Germany between 2013 and 2016 were surveyed and, among other things, asked about whether women should have the same rights as men in a democracy. Respondents are asked to guess how many refugees responded that women should have the same rights as men. The wording is as follows (translated into English):

"Out of 100 refugees, how many stated that women should in no case have the same
rights as men in a democracy?"

We will call a participant’s answer to this question: misogyny belief.

Respondents were informed about the details of the survey among refugees. The survey is the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees in Germany, which was representative for refugees arriving in Germany between 2013 and 2016. Refugees were asked to state, on a scale from 0 (in no case) to 10 (absolutely), how much they think equal rights for women should be part of every democracy. We use the refugees’ actual answers to this question to quantify our misogyny belief question.

Respondents are incentivized for correctness of their answer and can earn up to 4 EUR for their answer. Incentive compatibility is ensured by using a quadratic scoring rule.

We will conduct a survey experiment. Respondents are randomised to different treatment conditions that systematically manipulate whether subjects can benefit at the expense of an outgroup. We measure if people devalue the outgroup in order to justify selfish behavior.

The survey experiment consists of three main components: (i) An attention check to ensure high quality responses, (ii) a screen that elicits demographics and routs participants to one of the experimental conditions, depending on whether they match the desired sample characteristics, and (iii) a decision screen where participants face a donation decision and misogyny beliefs will be elicited.

The experimental treatments are: (1) Treatment Main, (2) Control No Self-Interest, and (3) Control No Link. While we will always elicit misogyny beliefs in the same way, the donation decision varies across the three experimental conditions.

We collect the following demographics as control variables: Age, gender, in which federal state the participant resides, self-placement on a left-right political spectrum, income, educational attainment, migration background, whether the participant lives in an urban area, and religious affiliation.

The three treatments are:

(1) Treatment Main Participants have the opportunity to take money away from a donation of 50 EUR to one of the largest pro-immigration advocacy groups in Germany, PRO ASYL.
More specifically, participants are told that 50 EUR will be donated to PRO ASYL and that they have the opportunity to take money away from the donation and keep it for themselves. For every 1 EUR they take away, participants receive 50 cents. Participants are provided with background information about PRO ASYL.

(2) Control No Self-interest Participants were asked to shift money between two pro-immigration advocacies. Participants are informed that we will donate 50 EUR to PRO ASYL but that they have the chance to shift some money from the donation to BumF (Bundesfachverband unbegleitete minderjährige Flüchtlinge), another pro-immigration organization in Germany. For every 1 EUR participants take away from the donation to PRO ASYL, 1 EUR will be given to BumF. Participants are provided with background information about the two organizations.

(3) Control No Link Participants have the opportunity to take money away from a donation of 50€ to a German environmental organization called BUND (Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland). More specifically, participants are told that 50 EUR will be donated to BUND and that they have the opportunity to take money away from the donation and keep it for themselves. For every 1 EUR they take away, participants receive 50 cents. Participants are provided with background information about BUND.

Randomization is done by computer

Randomization is done at the individual level

No

There are no clusters

1800 survey respondents

600 survey respondents per treatment