ESRA 2025 Preliminary Program
All time references are in CEST
Vignette Experiments in Survey Research: Exploring Discrimination Mechanisms through Controlled Scenarios 2 |
| Session Organisers |
Professor Giovanni Busetta (University of Messina)
Professor Maria Gabriella Campolo (University of Messina)
Dr Louis Lippens (Ghent University)
|
| Time | Thursday 17 July, 15:30 - 17:00 |
| Room |
Ruppert 042 |
Discrimination remains one of the most pervasive and complex social challenges today. Vignette experiments offer a powerful methodological tool to investigate these phenomena in controlled settings, allowing researchers to manipulate relevant variables and observe participants' responses. This type of experiment provides significant advantages in measuring discriminatory attitudes and intentions that might not surface through traditional methods, such as questionnaires or correspondence experiments.
This session aims to explore the use of vignette experiments in social research to study the mechanisms of discrimination, focusing on grounds including race, gender, age, and sexual orientation. We will examine the methodological benefits of vignettes, such as the ability to systematically control contextual and personal factors, as well as the challenges related to their implementation, including the interpretation and generalizability of the findings.
We invite theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions that use vignette experiments to investigate discrimination dynamics and their effects at individual and societal levels. The session aims to foster discussions on enhancing the quality of data collected through experiments, reducing Total Survey Error, and reflecting on how we can apply these techniques to future social research.
Keywords: Vignette experiments, Discrimination mechanisms, Implicit bias, Ethnicity, Gender
Papers
The Impact of Regional Origin on Hiring: A Vignette Experiment on Employer Bias
Miss Louise Devos (Ghent University) - Presenting Author
Dr Louis Lippens (Ghent University)
Miss Dagmar Claus (Ghent University)
Professor Stijn Baert (Ghent University)
Regional mobility is crucial for addressing labour shortages. This study examines the influence of regional origin on hiring decisions in the Flemish labour market, focusing on perceptions of Flemish recruiters towards Walloon candidates. Through a vignette experiment, 81 Flemish recruiters—selected for their lack of strong social desirability bias—evaluate fictitious resumes of school leavers signalling regional origin through their name, places of birth and residence, secondary education, and language proficiency. Walloon candidates consistently score lower on key hiring metrics, with their perceived origin reducing interview likelihood by 12.74% on average. Structural equation modelling reveals that Flemish employers hold negative perceptions of Walloon candidates, particularly regarding availability, interpersonal competencies, attitude, and willingness of employers, employees, and clients to cooperate with them. These findings highlight the persistent role of regional stereotypes in reinforcing labour market inequalities.
Decoding Ethnic Identity in Recruitment: The Impact of Identity Markers on Hiring Biases
Miss Louise Devos (Ghent University) - Presenting Author
Dr Louis Lippens (Ghent University)
Professor Stijn Baert (Ghent University)
Ethnic identity signals significantly influence employment decisions. This study investigates how multiple indicators of ethnic identity—including name-based cues (e.g., combinations of majority-sounding first names and foreign-sounding surnames, fully ethnic names, or majority-sounding names), migration background, and culture-specific extracurricular activities—affect recruiters’ assessments of job candidates in the Belgian context. We consider various ethnic backgrounds.
The experiment involves genuine recruiters who evaluate the likelihood of hiring fictitious candidates with diverse profiles for positions within their own companies. Furthermore, recruiters are also asked to predict their colleagues' responses, offering a more nuanced view of potential biases. Additionally, the study provides insights into the mechanisms underlying hiring discrimination. Recruiters assess candidates based on perceptions related to both taste-based and statistical discrimination, evaluating attributes like collaboration potential and productivity. We analyse how these signals interact with job characteristics such as customer contact, internal interaction, and whether the role is in a shortage occupation.
We control for a range of recruiter characteristics, such as gender, level of education, political preferences, and experience. Discrimination in hiring decisions is also analysed in relation to company characteristics, including firm size, region, multinational status, and profit orientation. Regional differences are mapped, with attention to how political preferences may shape discriminatory practices.
Our findings shed light on the mechanisms of unequal treatment in recruitment for individuals with migration backgrounds and offer policy and practical recommendations for employers and employees on mitigating biases in the labour market.
The Role of Sex Ratios in Refugee Inflows and Gendered Host Attitudes: A Vignette Survey Experiment in Germany
Miss Chia-Jung Tsai (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) - Presenting Author
Dr R. Gordon Rinderknecht (RAND Corporation)
Professor John Palmer (Pompeu Fabra University)
Professor Emilio Zagheni (Max-Planck Institute for Demographic Research)
This study investigates the extent to which the sex ratio of refugee populations can shape attitudes toward the refugee influx in Germany by using an online vignette survey experiment. We investigate whether the sex ratio of the refugee population explains differences in people's non-acceptance of refugee arrivals and different types of perceived threats: job competition, mate competition, German culture, and safety. Respondents are recruited via Meta targeted online advertisement in the German state of Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania. Our results suggest that the non-acceptance of a refugee group increases in line with that group’s ratio of men to women. Increases in the perceived threats toward German culture and safety appear to be especially pronounced as the ratio of men to women increases among non-white refugees. Female respondents tended to show more tolerant attitudes than male respondents toward refugee groups with lower male-to-female ratios. However, female respondents also perceived higher threats to culture and mate competition from non-white male refugees. Male respondents perceived higher job competition from non-white male refugees. Both female and male respondents perceived higher threats to safety from non-white male refugees. This study clarifies the underlying mechanisms driving negative attitudes toward refugee arrivals in Germany, focusing on the demographic composition of the refugee population.
