The effect of brief cooperative contact with ethnic minorities on discrimination

We randomly assigned students to an ethnically homogeneous or an ethnically mixed team for a cooperative task. One month later we used behavioral games to measure students' tendency to discriminate against ethnic minorities. We find that, overall, students did not discriminate and that participation in an ethnically mixed team did not have an effect on their behavior. We also find that prior exposure to ethnic minorities served as a moderator: students who had no classmates from a minority group in their regular classes did display discrimination and participation in an ethnically mixed team removed it. For students exposed to minority classmates, there was no effect, but they had displayed no discrimination in the first place. The results show that a relatively simple intervention that induces interethnic cooperative interaction may reduce discrimination among individuals who lack such interaction in their daily lives.