The Effect of Inclusive Policies on Discrimination

Inclusive policies that implement contact between groups can increase or decrease discrimination, according to the literature. These conflicting results may stem from differences in the types of discrimination addressed— if discriminatory behavior arises from different preferences or estimates—or from the contact's ability to change preferences and estimates. This article investigates the effect of contact on statistical and preference-based discrimination, as well as the anticipation effects associated with the latter. In our experiment, Republicans and Democrats were asked to participate in teams made up of outsiders, or to stay in homogeneous teams, and interact in a cooperative task. Later, they played different games to show their preferences or discriminatory estimates about the outsider group. Our contact intervention repaired preference-based discrimination by about 45%, and had no significant impact on trust between groups and statistical discrimination. Lessons for policymakers concerned with reducing discrimination involve characteristics that inclusive policies should pursue, by changing preferences or estimates, thus reducing different types of discrimination.