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In this study, I ask whether ambiguous framing can provide moral cover for racial discrimination. The study is motivated by the idea that discriminatory preferences may remain unexpressed when people cannot easily justify acting on them. Ambiguous framing can provide a plausible non-discriminatory explanation for biased behavior. I conducted a preregistered, incentivized experiment with 4,327 White U.S. participants who allocated real monetary bonuses to actual recipients. The experiment varied whether the ambiguously framed payoff option benefited a Black recipient or a White recipient. This design enables me to distinguish between a general tendency to avoid ambiguously framed options and the selective use of ambiguous framing as a justification for discrimination. The results do not support the hypothesis that the framing provides moral cover for discrimination at the population level. Participants choose the ambiguously framed option more often when it benefits the Black recipient than when it benefits the White recipient—the opposite of what its selective use against Black recipients would predict. Overall, the evidence is more consistent with a general tendency to avoid ambiguously framed options than with the use of such framing as moral cover for racial discrimination.

In this paper, I investigate whether information about the biological causes of homosexuality influences discriminatory behavior. Attribution theory suggests that perceiving sexual orientation as innate—rather than chosen—should reduce discrimination, since people tend to judge others less harshly for traits they cannot control. I conducted an online experiment with a representative sample of Russian adults. Participants were presented with scientific evidence supporting biological explanations for homosexuality, and discrimination was measured using incentivized allocation tasks. Contrary to the pre-registered hypothesis, however, exposure to information supporting biological explanations for homosexuality did not attenuate discrimination. Instead, the treatment increased discriminatory behavior. One possible interpretation is that information that conflicts with prior beliefs triggers cognitive dissonance, or irritation, particularly among participants whose views are inconsistent with biological explanations of homosexuality. Another possibility is that the information made sexual minorities seem fundamentally different. Overall, this chapter shows that information provision is not necessarily a straightforward solution to discrimination; in certain contexts, particularly intolerant ones, it may exacerbate the behavior it is intended to reduce.

Third Prize, Young Economist of the Year 2024, Czech Economic Society

This paper examines how the salience of religious identity causally affects discrimination against sexual minorities. I run an online experiment with 2,093 Russians, in which I use a priming technique to activate participants' religious identities and measure discrimination through incentivized allocation tasks and LGB-related policy questions. The descriptive analysis shows that more religious respondents allocate fewer resources to same-sex profiles and show less support for LGB-related policies. Men, older respondents, and conservatives also discriminate more than other groups. In the causal analysis, I find that the religious prime has no statistically robust effect on either allocations or policy preferences, even among religious respondents. The results therefore add causal evidence to a literature that has largely relied on correlations, and show that although religiosity is related to anti-LGB views, a brief religious reminder has little effect on behavior or policy preferences.