Perspective Taking to Reduce Prejudice: The Venezuela-Colombia Migrant Crisis

In 2019, mass immigration of Venezuelans to Colombia peaked, which for Colombian residents was accompanied by fear of potential conflicts and negative consequences. Given the lack of literature on the effectiveness of perspective taking in combatting discrimination in ongoing conflict situations, the present experiment (between-subjects design) investigated whether and how perspective taking affects Colombians’ (N = 254) levels of prejudice towards Venezuelan migrants. After manipulating perspective taking, the present research assessed participants’ levels of perspective taking, their empathy, trust, anxiety, and behavioral intentions towards as well as their evaluations of Venezuelans. The results showed that our manipulation was not effective in increasing perspective taking. However, in line with our preregistered hypotheses, self-reported levels of perspective taking were associated with more positive evaluations and behavioral intentions towards Venezuelan migrants. Furthermore, the findings provided some support for the role of empathy, trust, and anxiety as underlying mechanisms. Our study suggests that individual differences in perspective taking play a significant role in reducing prejudice towards out-group members, even in contexts of ongoing conflict. Yet, the current findings do raise doubt on the generalizability of previous experimental laboratory findings on perspective taking and prejudice. We discuss how knowledge on the mechanisms should help to improve perspective taking manipulations in future intergroup conflict intervention studies.