Trust and Selective Discrimination

Previous research has focused on the reasons that people discriminate in relationships where two parties are forced to interact. However, discrimination can also occur through selection; that is, people may choose to interact with one individual over another because of gender or ethnic stereotypes. This type of exclusion can have powerful consequences, as minorities might be consistently excluded from attractive jobs, desirable neighborhoods, and other opportunities, simply because those in the majority prefer to select their own kind.

To explore the issue of trust and discrimination, Robert Slonim of Case Western Reserve University will run a series of two-party trust games. In one condition, a trustor is matched with a single trustee of known gender and ethnicity. Seeing how the trustor treats the trustee in this situation, where interaction is required, will reveal what Slonim calls "non-selective trust discrimination." In a second condition, trustors are free to choose from a set of potential trustees, also of known gender and ethnicity. Who the trustor chooses and how he or she treats the trustee will indicate "selective trust discrimination." The games will also allow Slonim to look for the correlation between selective and non-selective discrimination, as well as the magnitude of each, for a given individual.