Discrimination Against Ethnic Minorities in Germany: Going Back to the Field¹

Abstract

A series of 14 field experiments on the differential treatment of ethnic majority and minority groups were conducted. In all studies, German participants were confronted with a German or a foreign confederate (ostensibly a member of the migrant‐worker population or a refugee/asylum seeker). In 9 experiments, the foreign confederate received worse treatment than did his German counterpart. Meta‐analyses showed a significant overall correlation between ethnic group membership and indexes of discrimination ( r = .24), which support the assumption of everyday ethnic discrimination in Germany. Categorizing studies according to the directness of interaction between confederate and participants revealed a significantly stronger discrimination in remote contact situations ( r = .34 vs. r = .17), replicating results of a review on American studies by Crosby, Bromley, and Saxe (1980).