Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:48:14.453Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Seeing the World Through the Other's Eye: An Online Intervention Reducing Ethnic Prejudice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2017

GÁBOR SIMONOVITS ,
GÁBOR KÉZDI  and
PÉTER KARDOS
GÁBOR SIMONOVITS*
Affiliation:
New York University
GÁBOR KÉZDI*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
PÉTER KARDOS*
Affiliation:
Bloomfield College
*
Gábor Simonovits is a PhD candidate, Department of Politics, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA ([email protected]).
Gábor Kézdi is a Research Professor, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, USA ([email protected]).
Péter Kardos is an Assistant Professor, Division of Social and Behavioral Science, Bloomfield College, Bloomfield, NJ 07003, USA ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We report the results of an intervention that targeted anti-Roma sentiment in Hungary using an online perspective-taking game. We evaluated the impact of this intervention using a randomized experiment in which a sample of young adults played this perspective-taking game, or an unrelated online game. Participation in the perspective-taking game markedly reduced prejudice, with an effect-size equivalent to half the difference between voters of the far-right and the center-right party. The effects persisted for at least a month, and, as a byproduct, the intervention also reduced antipathy toward refugees, another stigmatized group in Hungary, and decreased vote intentions for Hungary's overtly racist, far-right party by 10%. Our study offers a proof-of-concept for a general class of interventions that could be adapted to different settings and implemented at low costs.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 112 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 186 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank Don Green, Sean Kates, Cyrus Samii, and Stephanie Zonszein for helpful advice; Kristóf Horváth, Anita Kaderják, Berci Papp, and Melinda Tír for excellent research assistance; and Gábor Kertesi and the TARKI Zrt. for their help with data collection. All data used in this article is available on Dataverse along with replication code (doi:10.7910/DVN/KBRXOR).

References

REFERENCES

Adorno, Theodor W., Frenkel-Brunswik, Else, Levinson, Daniel, and Sanford, Nevitt R.. 1950. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar
Allport, Gordon W. 1954. The Nature of Prejudice. Oxford, UK: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Al Ramiah, Ananthi, and Hewstone, Miles. 2013. “Intergroup Contact as a Tool for Reducing, Resolving, and Preventing Intergroup Conflict: Evidence, Limitations, and Potential.” American Psychologist 68 (7): 527–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baron-Cohen, Simon. 1995. Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batson, C. Daniel. 2011. Altruism in Humans. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Batson, C. Daniel, Early, Shannon, and Salvarani, Giovanni. 1997. “Perspective Taking: Imagining How Another Feels Versus Imaging How You Would Feel.” Personal and Social Psychological Bulletin 23 (7): 751–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergen, Doris. 2002. “The Role of Pretend Play in Children's Cognitive Development.”Early Childhood Research & Practice 4 (1): 1.Google Scholar
Broockman, David E., and Kalla, Joshua. 2016. “Durably Reducing Transphobia: A Field Experiment on Door-to-Door Canvassing.” Science 352 (6282): 220–4.Google Scholar
Broockman, David E., Kalla, Joshua L., and Sekhon, Jasjeet S.. 2017. “The Design of Field Experiments With Survey Outcomes: A Framework for Selecting More Efficient, Robust, and Ethical Designs.” Political Analysis. Published electronically September 18, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1017/pan.2017.27 Google Scholar
Bruneau, Emile, and Saxe, Rebecca. 2012. “The Power of being Heard: The Benefits of Perspective-Giving in the Context of Intergroup Conflict.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (4): 855–66.Google Scholar
Dovidio, John F., Vergert, Marleen ten, Stewart, Tracie L., Gaertner, Samuel L., Johnson, James D., Esses, Victoria M., Riek, Blake M., and Pearson, Adam R.. 2004. “Perspective and Prejudice: Antecedents and Mediating Mechanisms.” Personal and Social Psychological Bulletin 30 (12): 1537–49.Google Scholar
Eifert, Benn, Miguel, Edward, and Posner, Daniel N.. 2010. “Political Competition and Ethnic Identification in Africa.” American Journal of Political Science 54 (2): 494–510.Google Scholar
Enos, Ryan D., and Gidron, Noam. 2016. “Intergroup Behavioral Strategies as Contextually Determined: Experimental Evidence from Israel.” The Journal of Politics, 78 (3): 851–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franco, Annie, Malhotra, Niel, and Simonovits, Gábor. 2016. “Underreporting in Psychology Experiments: Evidence from a Study Registry.” Social Psychology and Personality Science 7 (1): 8–12.Google Scholar
Galinsky, Adam D., and Gillian, Ku. 2004. “The Effects of Perspective-Taking on Prejudice: The Moderating Role of Self-Evaluation. ” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30 (5): 594–604.Google Scholar
Galinsky, Adam D., and Moskowitz, Gordon B.. 2000. “Perspective Taking: Decreasing Stereotype Expression, Stereotype Accessibility, and In-group Favoritism.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78 (4): 708–24.Google Scholar
Gerber, Alan S., and Green, Donald P.. 2012. Field Experiments: Design, Analysis, and Interpretation. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Ivarsflaten, Elisabeth. 2008. “What Unites Right-Wing Populists in Western Europe? Re-examining Grievance Mobilization Models in Seven Successful Cases.”Comparative Political Studies 41 (1): 3–23.Google Scholar
Karácsony, Gergely, and Róna, Daniel. 2011. “The Secret of Jobbik. Reasons behind the Rise of the Hungarian Radical Right.” Journal of East European & Asian Studies 2 (1): 61–93.Google Scholar
Kardos, Péter, and Nyári, Gábor. 2004. Gypsy Maze: A Role Playing Game. Budapest: Jonathan Miller Press.Google Scholar
Kavanaugh, Robert D. 2006. “Pretend Play and Theory of Mind.” In Child Psychology: A Handbook of Contemporary Issues, eds. Balter, Lawrence and Tamis-LeMonda, Catherine S.. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press, 153–66.Google Scholar
Lee, David S. 2009. “Training, Wages, and Sample Selection: Estimating Sharp Bounds on Treatment Effects.” The Review of Economic Studies 76 (3): 1071–102.Google Scholar
Leslie, Alan M. 1987. “Pretense and Representation: The Origins of “Theory of Mind.” Psychological Review 94 (4): 412–26.Google Scholar
Lucassen, Geertje, and Lubbers, Marcel. 2012. “Who Fears What? Explaining Far-Right-Wing Preference in Europe by Distinguishing Perceived Cultural and Economic Ethnic Threats.”Comparative Political Studies 45 (5): 547–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marsh, Diane T., Serafica, Felicisima C., and Barenboim, Carl. 1980. “Effect of Perspective-Taking Training on Interpersonal Problem Solving.” Child Development 51 (1): 140–5.Google Scholar
Paluck, Elizabeth Levy. 2010. “Is It Better Not to Talk? Group Polarization, Extended Contact, and Perspective Taking in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.” Personal and Social Psychological Bulletin 36 (9): 1170–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paluck, Elizabeth Levy, and Green, Donald P.. 2009. “Prejudice Reduction: What Works? A Critical Look at Evidence from the Field and the Laboratory.”Annual Review of Psychology 60: 339–67.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, Thomas F. 2009. “Secondary Transfer Effect of Contact: Do Intergroup Contact Effects Spread to Noncontacted Outgroups?”Social Psychology 40: 55–65.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, Thomas F., and Tropp, Linda R.. 2006. “A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90 (5): 751–83.Google Scholar
Posner, Daniel N. 2004. “The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas Are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi.”American Political Science Review 98 (4): 529–45.Google Scholar
Samii, Cyrus. 2013. “Perils or Promise of Ethnic Integration? Evidence from a Hard Case in Burundi.” American Political Science Review 107 (3): 558–73.Google Scholar
Schmid, Katharina, Hewstone, Miles, Kupper, Beate, Zick, Andreas, and Wagner, Ulrich. 2012. “Secondary Transfer Effects of Intergroup Contact: A Cross-National Comparison in Europe.” Social Psychology Quarterly 75 (1): 28–51.Google Scholar
Shook, Natalie J., and Fazio, Russell H.. 2008. “Interracial Roommate Relationships: An Experimental Field Test of the Contact Hypothesis.” Psychological Science 19 (7): 717–23.Google Scholar
Simonovits, Gábor, and Kézdi, Gábor. 2016. “Economic Hardship Triggers Identification with Disadvantaged Minorities.” The Journal of Politics 78 (3): 882–92.Google Scholar
Székelyi, Mária, Örkény, Antal, and Csepeli, György. 2001. “Romakép a mai magyar társadalomban.” Szociológiai Szemle 2001/3: 19–46.Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri. 1970. “Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination.” Scientific American. 223: 96–102.Google Scholar
Tausch, Nicole, Hewstone, Miles, Kenworthy, Jared B., Psaltis, Charis, Schmid, Katharina, Popan, Jason R., Ed Cairns, and Hughes, Joanne. 2010. “‘Secondary Transfer’ Effects of Intergroup Contact: Alternative Accounts and Underlying Processes.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 99 (2): 282–302.Google Scholar
Todd, Andrew R., and Galinsky, Adam D.. 2014. “Perspective-Taking as a Strategy for Improving Intergroup Relations: Evidence, Mechanisms, and Qualifications.” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 8 (7): 374–87.Google Scholar
Vescio, Theresa, Sechrist, Gretchen B., and Paolucci, Matthew P.. 2003. “Perspective Taking and Prejudice Reduction: The Mediational Role of Empathy Arousal and Situational Attributions.” European Journal of Social Psychology 33 (4): 455–72.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Simonovits et al. Dataset

Dataset

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/KBRXOR
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Simonovits et al supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Simonovits et al supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 400.2 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.