Which doctors do we trust? A vignette experiment of how gender and ethnicity influence trust

Abstract

Is people’s trust in doctors affected by their ethnicity or gender? It is often assumed that highly skilled migrants are protected from the worst effects of discrimination. Yet, they also report high degrees of discrimination. This study examines whether ethnic and gendered stereotypes influence trust in general practitioners in Norway. The question is investigated using a survey experiment. Respondents receive a brief resume of a general practitioner where the ethnicity and gender of the physician are randomly varied. Thereafter, the study focuses on investigating the interaction between the respondents' and fictive GPs' ethnicity and gender. The results show that while the majority population is indifferent to the ethnicity of the physicians, they prefer females. Non-Western minorities have a bias in favour of Pakistani-named GPs but are indifferent to the GP's gender.

What is in your résumé? The effects of multiple social categories in résumé screening

“…In addition, HE Chinese female candidates modestly outperformed the other candidates (British and locals) in interpersonal skills but not in the other variables, for which no intersectional effects were observed. These results are consistent with previous findings (Alecu, 2019; Derous et al ., 2009), specifically, the studies which use less distant minority groups (e.g. McGinnity and Lunn, 2011).…”

“…Interaction effects. In testing the SCM in Europe, Cuddy et al (2009) found several country stereotypes based on competence and warm differences, while some other studies found that national origin has a negative impact only in certain contexts (McGinnity and Lunn, 2011;Alecu, 2019;Derous et al, 2009), and for less prestigious ingroup members (Lewis and Sherman, 2003) and minorities (Ford and Mellon, 2020). This means that ingroup favouritism and outgroup discrimination can vary, and ingroup derogation and outgroup favouritism can be observed.…”

“…Although the Chinese are often stereotyped as industrious (see Guo, 2022, for a discussion on Chinese Diasporas), they remain discriminated against in Europe (Ford and Mellon, 2020) and locally (Gaspar and Rodrigues, 2021;Oliveira and Gomes, 2019;Pinto et al, 2023), including the Chinese international students (França et al, 2022); so, HE British candidates can be seen as more competent than the HE Chinese candidates (Ford and Mellon, 2020), scoring higher in job skills and job suitability. However, the extent of outgroup favouritism for the HE British candidates is not expected to overrun the ingroup favouritism towards the HE locals (Alecu, 2019), so no differences are expected between the equally qualified Portuguese and British candidates. The following hypothesis is then presented:…”

“…In the European context, several field experiments provide contradictory evidence on hiring discrimination against local minorities. Some studies found discrimination (Blommaert et al, 2014;Derous et al, , 2016) also against second-generation immigrants (Midtbøen, 2016), while other studies employing less stereotyped minority groups found smaller (McGinnity and Lunn, 2011) or no hiring differences (Alecu, 2019;Derous et al, 2009). However, Zschirnt and Ruedin's (2016) meta-analysis found discrimination even towards non-local candidates who were schooled locally (i.e.…”

“…In high cognitive-demanding jobs, they even observed outgroup favouritism through a preference for the Maghreb/Arab male applicants, which supported earlier findings (Derous et al ., 2009). Also, in testing hiring discrimination towards highly qualified candidates in Norway, no bias or overall trust variation was observed regarding local Norwegian vs Pakistani doctors (Alecu, 2019).…”