Ethnic discrimination unlearned: experience in the repeated Trust Game reduces trust bias

IntroductionDiscrimination toward ethnic minorities is a persistent societal problem. One reason behind this is a bias in trust: people tend to trust their ingroup and comparatively distrust outgroups. MethodsIn this study, we investigated whether and how people change their explicit trust bias with respect to ethnicity based on behavioral interactions with in- and outgroup members in a modified Trust Game. ResultsSubjects' initial explicit trust bias disappeared after the game. The change was largest for ingroup members who behaved unfairly, and the reduction of trust bias generalized to a small sample of new in- and outgroup members. Reinforcement learning models showed subjects' learning was best explained by a model with only one learning rate, indicating that subjects learned from trial outcomes and partner types equally during investment. DiscussionWe conclude that subjects can reduce bias through simple learning, in particular by learning that ingroup members can behave unfairly.

Automated summary

Discrimination towards ethnic minorities is a persistent societal problem, partly due to a bias in trust. This study investigated how people change their explicit trust bias towards ethnicity based on behavioral interactions with ingroup and outgroup members in a modified Trust Game. The results showed that participants' initial trust bias disappeared after the game, with the largest change observed for unfair ingroup members. The reduction of trust bias also generalized to new in- and outgroup members, and participants' learning was best explained by a model with one learning rate.