Experimental Design Workshop | Oct 14th [Online] - Incite at Columbia University

Join us for a workshop presentation. This event is free and open to the public.

”Play as an Intervention for Inter-racial Contact”

Research has provided support for Allport’s contact hypothesis, that interaction between members of different demographic groups can reduce intergroup bias. The research proposes that intergroup contact is especially debiasing under ‘optimal’ conditions:

• Equal status between the groups (in the situation)
• Common goals
• Intergroup cooperation
• Support of authorities, law, or custom

We seek to extend this work by exploring play as an even more powerfully debiasing form of interaction. We define play as an activity conducted for entertainment, which involves active participation and has a specific set of norms for behavior that differs from ‘ordinary life’ (i.e., non-play activities). Given that play is both engaging and involves the suspension of typical norms, roles, and responsibilities, we predict that play between members of different demographic groups will have an even stronger debiasing effect than forms of contact that satisfy Allport’s optimal conditions, but do not involve play.

We plan to conduct an experiment with inter-racial groups to study this (a group study where each group has a White, Black, and Asian student). This will be a 2-cell between-subjects design. In both conditions, each group will engage in an activity for 20-30 minutes. In the control condition, we will satisfy the four ‘optimal’ conditions by having groups engage in a cooperative activity. In the play condition, in addition to these conditions, we will change the activity so that they are playing a game. After the activity, we will confirm that people experienced the play condition as more play than the non-play condition (existing playfulness measures). We will measure participants’ specific attitudes towards their counterparts as well as intergroup anxiety (mediator), and DVs of generalized racial attitudes, ingroup pride, bias, prejudice, and willingness to connect (network outcomes).

We will follow up to look at how long the effects lasted, including behavioral outcomes such as how much time students spent interacting with members of other groups.

YeJin Park is a PhD student in the Management Department at NYU Stern. In her research, she aims to elucidate how non-work factors such as play, networks, and private beliefs spill over into work life and contribute to inequality. She uses experimental, survey, and qualitative methods to test her ideas.

Gavin J. Kilduff is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at NYU Stern. His research focuses on rivalry and competition, status dynamics in groups, and negotiations. Specifically, he examines how rivalries develop - among individuals, groups, and organizations - and how they affect competitive behavior and decision-making. Additionally, his work on status dynamics within groups examines how individuals achieve status and influence, as well as the group-level consequences of different kinds of hierarchical organization.

The workshop gives social scientists the opportunity to workshop the design of an experiment they have not yet fielded. Graduate student and faculty presenters will present their designs and receive specific, actionable feedback from other workshop participants. A list of our previous sessions can be found here.

For inquiries or if you are interested in joining the workshop's email list, please contact Daniel Tadmon (daniel.tadmon@columbia.edu) or James Chu (jyc2163@columbia.edu).

Funding support for the Experimental Design Workshop is provided by the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Lecture Series, administered by INCITE, which features events and programming that embody and honor Lazarsfeld’s commitment to the improvement of methodological approaches that address concerns of vital cultural and social significance.