Does better understanding of the extent of racial discrimination encourage support for pro-black policies?

How widespread do people think racial discrimination is in society? And how does that affect support for pro-black policies?

In a new research paper, Ingar Haaland and Christopher Roth examine people's beliefs about racial discrimination. Using a quantitative and incentivised belief elicitation, they find a large variation in people's beliefs about the extent of racial discrimination in society. They also document significant partisan differences in beliefs about the extent of racial discrimination.

To assess whether beliefs causally affect people's support for pro-black policies, they employ an information provision experiment in which a random subset of respondents are informed about research evidence on the extent of racial discrimination in hiring. While respondents strongly change their perceptions about the extent of racial discrimination in response to the research evidence, they do not change their broader attitudes on support for pro-black policies. These results demonstrate that while providing information can substantially reduce disagreement about the extent of racial discrimination, it is not sufficient to reduce disagreement about pro-black policies.

Read the research

Ingar Haaland and Christopher Roth (2021). Beliefs about racial discrimination and support for pro-Black policies. CAGE working paper (no. 554)