title: Three experimental approaches to measure the social context dependence of prejudice communication and discriminatory behavior.
abstract: Empirical research on discrimination is faced with crucial problems stemming from the specific character of its object of study. In democratic societies the communication of prejudices and other forms of discriminatory behavior is considered socially undesirable and depends on situational factors such as whether a situation is considered private or whether a discriminatory consensus can be assumed. Regular surveys thus can only offer a blurred picture of the phenomenon. But also survey experiments intended to decrease the social desirability bias (SDB) so far failed in systematically implementing situational variables. This paper introduces three experimental approaches to improve the study of discrimination and other topics of social (un-)desirability. First, we argue in favor of cognitive context framing in surveys in order to operationalize the salience of situational norms. Second, factorial surveys offer a way to take situational contexts and substitute behavior into account. And third, choice experiments - a rather new method in sociology - offer a more valid method of measuring behavioral characteristics compared to simple items in surveys. All three approaches - which may be combined - are easy to implement in large-scale surveys. Results of empirical studies demonstrate the fruitfulness of each of these approaches.
authors.affiliation: University of Wuppertal, Department of Sociology, Gaussstrasse 20, 42119 Wuppertal, Germany. Electronic address: hbeyer@uni-wuppertal.de.
authors.forename: Heiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Beyer
authors.affiliation: University of Bern, Institute of Sociology, Fabrikstrasse 8, 3012 Bern, Switzerland. Electronic address: ulf.liebe@soz.unibe.ch.
authors.forename: Ulf
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Liebe
mesh_terms: D015982:Bias; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003071:Cognition; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D011287:Prejudice; D012107:Research Design; D012928:Social Desirability; D063508:Social Discrimination; D012931:Social Environment; D012945:Social Values; D012961:Sociology / Q000379:methods*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Anti-Semitism; Political attitudes; Social desirability; Survey experiments