(Anticipated) Discrimination against Sexual Minorities in Prosocial Domains

Billur Aksoy, Ian Chadd and Boon Han Koh
Additional contact information
Ian Chadd: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

No 2021-08, University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series from School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Abstract: We study the effects of anticipated discrimination in prosocial domains against sexual minorities using a sharing (dictator) game in an online experiment. Recipients are given the opportunity to signal their sexual identity. Decision-makers, upon observing these signals, decide how much of their endowment to share with their matched recipients. We find that female, but not male, recipients are less likely to signal their sexual minority status when they are aware of the potential payoff implications of their decisions. Investigating the treatment of sexual minorities by decision-makers, we find that decision-makers are similarly generous based on the recipient's chosen signal of their sexual minority status. However, the intersection of decision-makers' political affiliations and the perceptions of these signals matter: Republican heterosexual decision-makers are less generous to others whom they perceive to be sexual minorities, while their Democratic counterparts are slightly more generous. This cannot be explained by religious affiliation or perceptions about the recipient's political leaning, but it is consistent with the direction of their implicit bias against homosexuals.

Keywords: taste-based discrimination; identity; LGBTQ+; political preferences; gender; online experiments. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D90 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-03-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gen, nep-isf, nep-lab and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ueaeco.github.io/working-papers/papers/ueaeco/UEA-ECO-21-08.pdf main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uea:ueaeco:2021-08

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Reception, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series from School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Cara Liggins ().