Abstract
To understand and combat hate, we must be able to identify it. Survey research represents, one of, if not the main tool in social scientists’ arsenal for identifying hate, discrimination, and prejudice. But this sort of research faces a fundamental challenge when survey participants know that their hateful attitudes are socially undesirable, and conceal these beliefs from researchers. A plethora of techniques have been developed to meet this challenge, ranging from conjoint experiments to randomized response techniques. Yet these tools have rarely been validated, and existing validation work is outdated for online survey work. We propose a two-part study, first investigating an original technique that would offer respondents monetary incentives for correct responses, which we believe would induce truthfulness. Second, we propose to validate both our monetary incentives method and the four most prominent currently used methods using an upcoming 2026 referendum in Colorado as benchmark. Our research will uncover which of these techniques performs best, for the first time enabling social scientists, researchers, and practitioners to confidently measure hate in the public.
