Political Psychology: What Political Scientists Get Wrong About LaPiere's 1934 Study
Attitudes Vs. Individual Behavior
Richard LaPiere's 1934 study revealed a striking gap between stated attitudes and actual behavior. LaPiere, a white sociologist, traveled across the United States for two years with a Chinese couple, visiting 251 restaurants, hotels, and motels. Despite widespread anti-Chinese sentiment at the time, they were refused service only once.
Six months later, LaPiere mailed questionnaires to the same establishments asking whether they would serve Chinese customers. The responses were overwhelmingly negative: 92% of restaurants and 91% of hotels said they would not serve Chinese patrons—directly contradicting their actual behavior when faced with real customers.
Politics and Mass Behavior
"The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (Pub. L. 68–139, 43 Stat. 153, enacted May 26, 1924), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from every country outside Latin America."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924
In 1934, the US passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act.
"The act reclassified all Filipinos, including those who were living in the United States, as aliens for the purposes of immigration to the United States. A quota of 50 immigrants per year was established.[2] Before this act, Filipinos were classified as United States nationals, but not United States citizens, and while they were allowed to migrate relatively freely, they were denied naturalization rights within the US unless they were citizens by birth in the mainland US."
"In 1933, mobs of white people attacked Filipino farmworkers after they were seen dancing with white women in Watsonville, California. The state later enacted a law to prohibit marriages between the two groups."
via: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/a-history-of-anti-asian-hate-in-the-united-states
Lessons for Politics
LaPiere’s study likely holds limited value for political scientists. Their interest in attitudes stems not from whether they align with private behavior, but from how they shape political possibility — the kinds of laws that can be passed, the collective actions that can gain traction, and the coalitions or backlash that may form. Whether individuals privately act inconsistently with their expressed views matters less than how those views constrain or enable political outcomes.
Other Attitudes to Ponder About
"Taking the life of those who abandon Islam is most widely supported in Egypt (86%) and Jordan (82%).
In the South Asian countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, strong majorities of those who favor making Islamic law the official law of the land also approve of executing apostates (79% and 76%, respectively).
In Pakistan (89%) and Afghanistan (85%), more than eight-in-ten Muslims who want Islamic law as their country’s official law say adulterers should be stoned, while nearly as many say the same in the Palestinian territories (84%) and Egypt (81%).
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/
Pair with:
"Across the countries surveyed, many Muslims who say their laws do not follow sharia believe this is a bad thing. Muslims in South Asia are especially likely to express this sentiment, including at least eight-in-ten Muslims in Pakistan (91%), Afghanistan (84%) and Bangladesh (83%)."
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/