Reciprocal beliefs and out-group cooperation: evidence from a public good game

This experimental study examines latent racial prejudice toward out-groups among 152 Spanish college students when they make guesses about the contributions of others in a public good game. Prejudice is examined firstly from the perspective of a two-sided, implicitly-held belief toward any of the specified out-groups: Africans, Asians, Latin Americans and Western. Secondly, from an ordinal perspective of highest negative (positive) prejudice. Lastly models of racial beliefs are fitted for the four out-groups. Results suggest subjects expect Africans and Latin Americans to be less cooperative, but Asians and Western to be more cooperative, than they actually are. We also find that racial prejudices do not have unique determinants across the out-groups under study, nor do the determining factors work in similar directions.