Intergroup Behavioral Strategies as Contextually Determined: Experimental Evidence from Israel

Abstract

Why are the negative effects of social diversity more pronounced in some places than in others? What are the mechanisms underlying the relationship between diversity and discriminatory behaviors, and why do they vary in prevalence and strength across locations? Experimental research has made advances in examining these questions by testing for differences in behavior when interacting with individuals from different groups. At the same time, research in American and comparative politics has demonstrated that attitudes toward other groups are a function of context. Uniting these two lines of research, we argue that discriminatory behaviors should be strongly conditioned by the ways in which groups are organized in space, allowing us to make predictions about the relationship between diversity, segregation, and intergroup behavior. We examine this claim in the context of intra-Jewish cleavage in Israel, using original data compiled through multisite lab-in-the-field experiments and survey responses collected across 20 locations.