Reducing housing discrimination in a challenging normative context: Results of a perspective-taking intervention in collaboration with a home rental platform

How can we reduce discrimination against ethnic minorities without the support of public institutions and state policies? In this article we describe the results of an intervention targeted to reduce discrimination against Roma people in Hungary in the context of rental housing. In collaboration with an online platform for home rental, we tested the impact of a perspective-taking short documentary film. Our audit study revealed pronounced discrimination. Evidence from our survey experiment demonstrated that – at least in the short run and based on measures of behavioral intentions – exposure to our video clip substantially increased willingness to rent to ethnic minority applicants. Our study proposes a promising avenue for the delivery of interventions in contexts in which state institutions don’t tackle the problem of ethnic discrimination.