King's College London

Consecutive governments have long recognised the detrimental effects of discrimination, making efforts to safeguard marginalised groups against unfair treatment, a lack of resources and socio-emotional and physical harm, while simultaneously working to reduce prejudice and strengthen social cohesion.

Although substantial progress has been made, the last decade has seen renewed focus on, and debate about, the rights and inclusion of some groups of people, particularly affecting LGBTQ+ communities as well as ethnic and religious minorities.

Ample research has been conducted on the use of behavioural interventions that can support legislative efforts to protect such groups. However, most relevant studies have been designed and tested in the US and rely on self-reported measures, resulting in limited applicability within a UK context and likely distorted findings due to what’s known as social desirability bias – the tendency to answer questions about sensitive or polarising issues in a way that is likely to be perceived favourably by others.

To address both of these challenges, this research makes use of an innovative "double list experiment" approach to measure tolerance more rigorously and test whether social norms-based interventions that have previously been shown to be effective in increasing tolerance in the US can have similar effects in the UK today. This approach provides measures that are less subject to social desirability bias, by asking participants to indicate how many of a list of statements they agree with, rather than asking them whether they agree with any particular statement, and randomly altering the lists that people see.