An experimental test of prejudice about foreign people

Abstract

This paper o ers two related issues: (i) an application of beliefs about the cooperative behavior of others to policy-oriented issues; and (ii) a method of exploring racial prejudices where the subjects are oblivious of its purpose. We studied contributions and guesses about others' contributions in an experimental game. Prejudice is examined as a two-sided, implicitly held belief by Spanish college students toward any of the speci ed foreign population groups (i.e. Africans, Asians, Latin Americans and Westerners). The results show that subjects tend to harbor mixed feelings toward foreigners. However, racial prejudices do not have unique determinants across the foreign groups under study nor do the determining factors work in similar directions as observed with some signi cant variables such as individual net worth, beliefs about income status, religious intensity and societal cooperation.