Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706;
Middle East Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Apr 6;118(14). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2022634118.
Diversity in the lines of public institutions, such as hospitals, schools, and police forces, is thought to improve provision for minority group members. Nonetheless, whether and how diversity in public institutions shapes majority citizens' prejudice toward minorities are unclear. Building on insights from the intergroup contact literature, I suggest that diversity in public institutions can facilitate positive intergroup contact between majority group members and minorities in elevated social positions. Such unique interactions, which exceed the equal status condition for effective intergroup contact, can serve to reduce prejudice and facilitate more inclusive attitudes among majority group members. To test this expectation, I focus on health care provision-a leading sector with regard to minority representation. Leveraging a natural experiment unfolding in 21 Israeli medical clinics where Jewish patients are haphazardly assigned to receive care from Jewish or Arab doctors and embedding prejudice-related questions in a routine evaluation survey, I demonstrate that brief contact with an Arab doctor reduces prejudice. Specifically, contact with an Arab doctor reduces Jewish patients' exclusionary preferences toward Arabs by one-sixth of an SD and increases Jewish patients' optimism about peace by a 10th of an SD. The modest magnitude of these effects is similar to the impact of well-powered interventions recently reviewed in a meta-analysis of prejudice reduction experiments. These findings emphasize how the demographic makeup of public institutions can reduce mass prejudice, even in a context of intractable conflict.
公共机构（如医院、学校和警察部队）的多样性被认为可以改善少数群体成员的服务。然而，公共机构的多样性是否以及如何影响大多数公民对少数群体的偏见尚不清楚。基于群体间接触文献的见解，我认为，公共机构的多样性可以促进大多数群体成员与处于较高社会地位的少数群体之间的积极的群体间接触。这种独特的互动超越了有效群体间接触的平等地位条件，可以减少偏见，并促进大多数群体成员更加包容的态度。为了检验这一期望，我关注医疗保健服务——这是少数群体代表性的一个主要领域。利用在 21 家以色列医疗诊所中展开的一项自然实验，在这些诊所中，犹太患者随机被分配给犹太医生或阿拉伯医生进行治疗，并在常规评估调查中嵌入与偏见相关的问题，我证明了与阿拉伯医生的短暂接触可以减少偏见。具体来说，与阿拉伯医生接触可以使犹太患者对阿拉伯人的排斥性偏好减少六分之一标准差，并使犹太患者对和平的乐观程度增加十分之一标准差。这些影响的适度幅度与最近在一项关于减少偏见实验的元分析中综述的干预措施的影响相当。这些发现强调了公共机构的人口构成如何能够减少大众偏见，即使在难以解决的冲突背景下也是如此。
