REVIEW OF INTERVENTION STUDIES FOR A SOCIAL PROBLEM

Social problem: Reducing Discrimination and Prejudice against Religious and Sexual
Minorities
Study 3: Countering Misperceptions to Reduce Prejudice: An Experiment on Attitudes
toward Muslim Americans
By: Scott Williamson (2019)
Background
Muslim Americans constitute one of the United States’ most vulnerable minorities, facing
prejudice and discrimination from both the public and the government. Negative attitudes
toward the community have remained high for decades, but this vulnerability has worsened in
the context of the War on Terror, and more recently following the 2016 election. Attitudes
toward Muslim Americans are also tied to fears of terrorism: Muslims are stereotyped as
violent and threatening and their loyalty to the United States is often questioned. While
scholars have developed researches on the causes of prejudice against Muslim Americans,
relatively few studies in the prejudice reduction field consider interventions to mitigate
prejudice against Muslim Americans. Therefore, this study discusses results from an
experiment designed to improve attitudes toward Muslim Americans.
Psychological construct
Prejudice is a complex phenomenon with many contributing factors, but scholars have long
recognized its connection to ignorance about the other (Fiske 1998). Unfamiliarity with an
out-group can encourage a focus on perceived dissimilarities and negative stereotypes, which
then activates prejudice by feelings of threat and fear. This dynamic appears relevant to
prejudice against Muslim Americans. Unfamiliarity with Muslims is relatively common in
the United States and research shows that prejudiced views are related to inaccurate beliefs
that the Muslim community is “different” in ways that pose both cultural and security threats
to the country. Since prejudice against Muslim Americans appears to be rooted partially in
misperceptions about how the community differs from the American mainstream, this
intervention study tests whether this prejudice can be lessened by information demonstrating
that Muslim Americans’ identities, hobbies, and attitudes toward political violence are similar
to those of other Americans.
Sample of the study
The experiment was conducted simultaneously on three nationally representative omnibus
surveys implemented online in Qualtrics via Survey Sampling International (SSI) in March
2017. Each survey included different questions on various political and social topics in the
United States, but the experimental intervention was similar, and the surveys were split only
because of the funding arrangement. The total sample included 3,267 respondents after 458
speeders were dropped.
Design of the intervention study
This study had an experimental design. Experimental method involves manipulation of one
variable to see if this causes changes in another variable. This method relies on controlled
research methods and random assignment of study participants to test a hypothesis. Two-
thirds of respondents were randomly assigned to the treatment group. These respondents were
exposed to a prompt with information addressing misperceptions about Muslim Americans.
The remaining one-third of respondents in the control group received no prompt.
The information prompt was presented to the participants in the treatment group. It stated
“Does any of the information here surprise you? Please check the boxes that you find
surprising.
Muslim Americans have the same hobbies as other Americans: 48 percent of Muslim
Americans watch pro or college sports regularly, compared to 47 percent of the general
American public.”
The experiment combined the statements to ensure a relatively strong treatment – given the
difficulty of shifting prejudiced attitudes – and because real-world efforts at prejudice
reduction typically combine multiple messages in this way.
The experiment included two additional manipulations which were robustness checks. First,
prejudice reduction strategies must compete with environmental cues and deliberate
messaging that promote prejudice.
The study evaluated the treatment’s robustness to an environment in which fear of terrorism
was present by randomly assigning half of the respondents to a question priming terrorism.
threats. For those assigned to the prime, it was the first component of the survey module they
viewed. These respondents were reminded of recent ISIS attacks in the West and asked to
rate the threat terrorism posed to the United States. Second, to evaluate the effects of social
desirability bias, half of the respondents were randomly assigned to a statement licensing
them to voice non-politically correct views.
Respondents answered five outcome questions meant to capture both perceptions of Muslim
Americans and views of how the government should treat Muslim. Regarding perceptions,
respondents rated Muslim Americans on a feeling thermometer, and they were also asked if
Muslim Americans were just as patriotic as other Americans. Regarding policies, respondents
were asked about their support for increasing surveillance of Muslim Americans, banning
refugees from Muslim countries, and requiring Muslim Americans to register with the
government.
The primary hypothesis of the study is that respondents exposed to the information treatment
would, on average, demonstrate more favourable attitudes toward Muslim Americans.
Results of the study
This paper finds that information countering misperceptions about how Muslim Americans
differ from other Americans can somewhat decrease the expression of negative attitudes
toward the community, at least in the short term. A potential strength of the treatment was its
relative success among white and elderly Americans, given their predisposition to negativity
toward Muslim Americans.
Favourability on the feeling thermometer increased from 59.2 to 64.4 (p = 0.000), equivalent
to a one-fifth standard deviation increase. Likewise, respondents who described Muslim
Americans as equally or more patriotic increased from 63.2 percent to 67.9 percent (p =
0.008), equivalent to a one-tenth standard deviation increase.
Analysis of heterogeneous effects for subgroups predisposed to prejudice against Muslim
Americans suggests that some of these groups actually responded more strongly to the
treatment, unlike the expectations that they should be more resistant to updating their beliefs
favourably.
For the competitive information environment, because the interaction terms were
insignificant, it cannot be concluded that the treatment became less effective when
respondents were first primed to think about terrorism. However, in general, the treatment
appeared to weaken.
For the social desirability bias, the treatment effects were only significant for the
thermometer and patriotism outcomes in the presence of the non-PC license, and not for the
policy outcomes. This pattern sheds light on the results for the main effects, where the
treatment improved perceptions of Muslim Americans but struggled to reduce support for
harmful policies.
The interaction between the treatment and elderly respondents was positive and significant at
0.05 for five of the six outcomes, and the interaction with white respondents was positive and
significant for three of the outcomes, with two others borderline. It appears that the treatment
had a greater impact on older and white responders. However, interactions with not knowing
Muslims were generally negative whereas Republican interactions were primarily negative.
Therefore, exposure to the information treatment appears to have generated modest
improvement in attitudes toward Muslim Americans.
The results further suggest that advocates can acquire increasing benefits from pursuing
informational campaigns carefully made to counter common but inaccurate beliefs about
differences between the majority and a vulnerable minority.
Implications
A potential strength of the treatment was its relative success among white and elderly
Americans, given their predisposition to negativity toward Muslim Americans. On the other
hand, the fact that Republicans were somewhat less likely to respond to the treatment is more
in line with the expectations that prejudice toward Muslim Americans will be deeply held and
difficult to change. A possible explanation for the difference between these subgroups could
be that hostility toward Muslims is associated with one’s Republican identity because of
positions adopted by the party.
The partisan and policy dynamics in the study suggest that efforts to reduce prejudice will
have a difficult time as long as the political and media actors seek to promote and profit from
misconceptions that Muslim Americans are different from the rest, particularly since the
treatment weakened slightly when confronted by even a modestly competitive information
environment.
Limitations
One limitation of the treatment was its difficulty in shifting respondents’ policy attitudes, a
finding that is consistent with experimental studies demonstrating that information often
struggles to move policy preferences, even if it can change other attitudes. This divergence
highlights the fact that improving attitudes toward a minority group does not necessarily
translate into reduced support for policies that would harm the group.
Another limitation of this design is the inability to determine whether the information
contained in some of these statements matters more than others for attitude change
Prejudiced people might be still motivated to maintain their attitudes after exposure to
information countering their misperceptions, since accepting such information would threaten
their identity such as the Republicans.