Dynamic Racial Triangulation: Examining the Racial Order using Two Experiments on Discrimination among Millennials

Understanding the “How” and “Why” Aspects of Racial-Ethnic Discrimination: A Multimethod Approach to Audit Studies

“…The investigators found that even though employers said they would not discriminate, their actions often proved otherwise. A recent study of Millennial roommate seekers found similar results across an audit and survey experiment (Gaddis and Ghoshal 2017, 2019). These studies highlight the value of audits over survey and interview methods to assess racial-ethnic discrimination among respondents occupying positions of power.…”

“…One final recent study conducted on Craigslist examined patterns of racial-ethnic discrimination in the housing search for roommates in the United States (Gaddis and Ghoshal 2019). The authors found that blacks, Asians, and Hispanics received significantly fewer responses to their inquiries than did whites.…”

“…Audit studies allow researchers to make strong causal claims and explore questions that are often difficult or impossible to answer with observational data. In particular, researchers have used audit studies examining racial-ethnic discrimination to accomplish two goals: (1) adjudicate potential issues of spuriousness (Gaddis 2015, 2018a) and (2) avoid social desirability bias (Gaddis and Ghoshal 2019; Pager and Quillian 2005). Although scholarly work using the audit method does not always make it explicitly clear, all audits, by their covert experimental nature, implicitly minimize spuriousness and social desirability bias.…”

“…Beyond the traditional contexts of discrimination in employment (Bertrand and Mullainathan 2004; Deming et al 2016; Gaddis 2015; Pager 2003; Pager, Western, and Bonikowski 2009; Pedulla 2018a) and housing (Carpusor and Loges 2006; Ewens, Tomlin, and Wang 2014; Galster and Godfrey 2005; Turner et al 2002), researchers have documented racial-ethnic discrimination in banking and economic transactions (Ayers 1991; Ayers and Siegelman 1995; Doleac and Stein 2013; Hanson et al 2016); admission to nightclubs (May and Goldsmith 2018); scheduling of medical appointments (Kugelmass 2016; Sharma, Mitra, and Stano 2015); communication with church representatives (Wright et al 2015), college admissions counselors (Thornhill 2018), professors (Milkman et al 2012, 2015), and public officials (Butler and Broockman 2011; Einstein and Glick 2017; White, Nathan, and Faller 2015); and on Airbnb (Edelman, Luca, and Svirsky 2017), Craigslist (Gaddis and Ghoshal 2017, 2019), and Uber (Ge et al 2016). The literature suggests that racial-ethnic discrimination is prevalent across multiple and diverse contexts, knows no geographic bounds, and has been widespread for decades.…”

“…These findings suggest that agents in positions of power likely use both cues of race-ethnicity and social class status to engage in racial-ethnic discrimination. Other evidence suggests that for Hispanics and Asians in the United States, signals of immigrant generational status and assimilation play roles in racial-ethnic discrimination (Gaddis 2017b, 2019b; Gaddis and Ghoshal 2019). Still, significant gaps remain in our knowledge about how employers and other agents use explicit and implicit racial-ethnic signals included in correspondence and other outside information (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn) to engage in racial-ethnic discrimination.…”