Reducing prejudice through actual and imagined contact: A field experiment with Malawian shopkeepers and Chinese immigrants

Jun Gu, Annika Mueller, Ingrid Nielsen, Jason Shachat and Russell Smyth

No 105/2015, Working Papers on East Asian Studies from University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of East Asian Studies IN-EAST

Abstract: We examine the ability of intergroup contact to ameliorate the effect of in-group bias on economic outcomes. Specifically, we employ randomized experiments to test whether actual and imagined contact is effective in reducing prejudice between indigenous Malawian shopkeepers (in-group), and their Chinese immigrant counterparts (out-group), and test the stability of these changes over time. We find differing results with actual contact. Local Malawians´ attitude towards Chinese migrants did not improve, but their willingness to spend time did. In contrast, actual contact spurred improvement in the Chinese migrants´ attitude toward local Malawians, but did not increase their willingness to spend time with them. These effects persisted over a time period of at least ten days. Imagined contact had no impact on Malawians´ attitude or behavioral intention with respect to Chinese migrants

Keywords: Chinese migrants in Africa; actual contact; imagined contact; prejudice; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 J15 O19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-mig
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:udedao:1052015

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