Lab-in-the-Field Experiments

Lab-in-the-field experiments have played a major role in identifying behavioral causes of discrimination and ways to reduce discrimination. Such experiments have made it possible to isolate, among the many causes of discrimination, how cognitive mechanisms such as stereotyping, implicit bias, and in-group favoritism contribute to unequal experiences and opportunities. Evidence from natural experiments shows that mandates and incentives, established norms, and the likely desires of judges, teachers, and tenure committees to be fair do not “fix” the biases revealed in lab-in-the-field experiments. To perceive is to categorize, and the prototypes and cultural meanings associated with a category affect perception and judgments and can lead to discrimination. The phenomenon of cultural association that drives discrimination is the central focus of this chapter. Hoff, Demeritt, and Stiglitz (The other invisible hand: The power of culture to spur or stymie progress. Manuscript in preparation for Columbia University Press, 2022) call it schematic discrimination and define it as discrimination based on widely shared cultural schemas or “mental models” about specific types of people. It is distinct from taste-based and statistical discrimination because it may be neither consciously chosen nor efficient, and it is inclusive of, but broader than, implicit discrimination because it can occur either at or below the level of consciousness. Lab-in-the-field experiments have been used to evaluate ways to reduce schematic discrimination. Interventions that give people the experience of collaborative intergroup contact have substantially reduced schematic discrimination across a variety of social contexts.