Toward an Understanding of Why People Discriminate: Evidence from a Series of Natural Field Experiments

Gneezy, Uri; List, John A.; Price, Michael K.

doi:10.3386/w17855

Cited by 87 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(30 reference statements)

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“…Important factors that have been shown to reduce racial bias include improved monitoring of the accuracy of individual decision making (9), closer physical proximity to individuals of the other group (10,11), exposure to multi-cultural education (12,13), and exposure to situations that contradict the particular bias (14). Additional studies provide examples of how incentives, pressure, and transparency can change racial biases (15)(16)(17).…”

Section: Reducing Racial Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Awareness Reduces Racial Bias

Pope¹,

Price²,

Wolfers³

2013

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 7945 February 2014 ABSTRACT Awareness Reduces Racial BiasCan raising awareness of racial bias subsequently reduce that bias? We address this question by exploiting the widespread media attention highlighting racial bias among professional basketball referees that occurred in May 2007 following the release of an academic study. Using new data, we confirm that racial bias persisted in the years after the study's original sample, but prior to the media coverage. Subsequent to the media coverage though, the bias completely disappeared. We examine potential mechanisms that may have produced this result and find that the most likely explanation is that upon becoming aware of their biases, individual referees changed their decision-making process. These results suggest that raising awareness of even subtle forms of bias can bring about meaningful change.JEL Classification: J15, J7, L83, K31

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Section: Reducing Racial Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Awareness Reduces Racial Bias

Pope¹,

Price²,

Wolfers³

2013

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“…(2013), Ayres and Siegelman (1995) and Gneezy, List, and Price (2012) are three examples. While our paper does investigate the e↵ect of gender on price, our emphasis di↵ers from most of the papers in this literature in that we are interested primarily in whether the e↵ects of di↵erent information conditions vary by gender; put simply, we are interested more in the interaction than in the main e↵ect of gender.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The analysis that is most closely related to ours is in Gneezy, List, and Price (2012). Gneezy, List, and Price (2012) contains a series of field experiments across several di↵erent markets, and investigates not only discrimination by race and gender, but also by age, sexual orientation, and disability.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The experiments used in this paper follow an experimental paradigm commonly used to study race and gender discrimination (Ayres and Siegelman 1995, Bertrand and Mullainathan 2004, Gneezy, List, and Price 2012. In this paradigm researchers pose as consumers/job seekers to measure the reaction of firms to di↵erent experimental stimuli.…”

Section: Experimental Paradigmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gneezy, List, and Price (2012) contains a series of field experiments across several di↵erent markets, and investigates not only discrimination by race and gender, but also by age, sexual orientation, and disability. In their investigation of disability discrimination, they have disabled and non-disabled testers ask for price quotes at auto body shops using an identical car.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Repairing the Damage: The Effect of Price Knowledge and Gender on Auto Repair Price Quotes

Busse

Israeli

Zettelmeyer

2017

Journal of Marketing Research

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In this paper we investigate whether sellers treat consumers di↵erently on the basis of how well informed consumers appear to be. We implement a large-scale field experiment in which callers request price quotes from automotive repair shops. We show that sellers alter their initial price quotes depending on whether consumers appear to be correctly informed, uninformed, or misinformed about market prices. We find that repair shops quote higher prices to callers who cite a higher benchmark price. We find that women are quoted higher prices than men when callers signal that they are uninformed about market prices. However, gender di↵erences disappear when callers mention a benchmark price for the repair. Finally, we find that repair shops are more likely to o↵er a price concession if asked to do so by a woman than a man.

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Audit Studies: Behind the Scenes with Theory, Method, and Nuance

Gaddis¹

2018

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An audit study is a specific type of field experiment primarily used to test for discriminatory behavior when survey and interview questions induce social desirability bas. In this chapter, I first review the language and definitions related to audit studies and encourage adoption of a common language. I then discuss why researchers use the audit method as well as when researchers can and should use this method. Next, I give an overview of the history of audit studies, focusing on major developments and changes in the overall body of work. Finally, I discuss the limitations of correspondence audits and provide some thoughts on future directions.

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Toward an Understanding of Why People Discriminate: Evidence from a Series of Natural Field Experiments

Cited by 87 publications

References 39 publications

Awareness Reduces Racial Bias

Awareness Reduces Racial Bias

Repairing the Damage: The Effect of Price Knowledge and Gender on Auto Repair Price Quotes

Audit Studies: Behind the Scenes with Theory, Method, and Nuance

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