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. 2018 Sep 18;115(38):9521-9526.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1804002115. Epub 2018 Sep 4.

Perspective taking can promote short-term inclusionary behavior toward Syrian refugees

Claire L Adida  1 , Adeline Lo  2 , Melina R Platas  3
Affiliations

Perspective taking can promote short-term inclusionary behavior toward Syrian refugees

Claire L Adida et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Social scientists have shown how easily individuals are moved to exclude outgroup members. Can we foster inclusion instead? This study leverages one of the most significant humanitarian crises of our time to test whether, and under what conditions, American citizens adopt more inclusionary behavior toward Syrian refugees. We conduct a nationally representative survey of over 5,000 American citizens in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election and experimentally test whether a perspective-taking exercise increases inclusionary behavior in the form of an anonymous letter supportive of refugees to be sent to the 45th President of the United States. Our results indicate that the perspective-taking message increases the likelihood of writing such a positive letter by two to five percentage points. By contrast, an informational message had no significant effect on letter writing. The effect of the perspective-taking exercise occurs in the short run only, manifests as a behavioral rather than an attitudinal response, and is strongest among Democrats. However, this effect also appears in the subset of Republican respondents, suggesting that efforts to promote perspective taking may move to action a wide cross-section of individuals.

Keywords: empathy; exclusion; immigration; perspective taking; refugees.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Average treatment effect of perspective taking relative to the control condition (left) and the information condition (center) and average treatment effect of information relative to control condition (right). Bars show 90% and 95% confidence intervals. Full sample is shown. Average treatment effects are based on an OLS regression estimating Eq. 1.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Average treatment effect of perspective taking on the full sample (gray), the subsample of Democrats (blue), the subsample of Independents (green), and the subsample of Republicans (red). Bars show 90% and 95% confidence intervals. Wave 1 sample is shown. All graphs show treatment effects based on an OLS regression estimating Eq. 1 on various subsamples.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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