Measuring Ethnic Bias: Can Misattribution-Based Tools from Social Psychology Reveal Group Biases that Economics Games Cannot?

Abstract Economics games such as the Dictator and Public Goods Games have been widely used to measure ethnic bias in political science economics. Yet these tools may fail intended because they are vulnerable self-presentational concerns and/or capture rooted more automatic associative affective reactions. We examine a set of misattribution-based approaches, adapted from social psychology, that sidestep concerns. Participants Nairobi, Kenya completed series common economics alongside versions misattribution tasks for this setting, each designed detect toward noncoethnics relative coethnics. Several show clear evidence (expected) bias, arguably reflecting differences positive/negative affect heightened threat perception noncoethnics. The Games, by contrast, unable any behavior versus conclude researchers other biases benefit including procedures their tool kits widen which investigations sensitive.