This dissertation consists of three chapters in development economics which investigate questions related to intergroup contact and the consequences of civil conflicts. In the first chapter, I study how refugee networks influence social integration in the host community in the context of Turkey, a country that has been profoundly impacted by the arrival of more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees since 2011. Using a rich dataset on the mobile phone communications of Syrian refugees, I construct village-level measures of refugee presence and social integration. In villages with a larger refugee population, refugees made significantly more phone calls to locals and other refugees, and a higher proportion of their calls were placed to locals. I argue that refugee networks made it easier for their members to interact with locals by sharing information on local norms and creating new opportunities to meet locals. The second chapter examines how the cost of inter-ethnic contact influences inter-ethnic relations. The study uses the staggered improvements of the Indonesian road network during the 1990s and shows that it lowered the cost of intergroup contact. The resulting enhancement in access to other ethnic groups led to increasing rates of inter-ethnic marriages. The third chapter investigates the long-run effects of civil conflicts on human capital that owe their impact to family structure. Specifically, I study how the loss of a sibling during the 1994 genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda affected surviving children. The loss of a sibling had positive effects on human capital and negative effects on wealth. I argue that these results are consistent with standard models of fertility choice, although other mechanisms could also have played a role.

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The current study examined African American participants’ perceptions of and reactions to a White ally vs. a Black target (vs. a no confrontation control condition) prejudice confrontation. Based on intergroup helping theories suggesting that low-status group members question high-status helper motivations and consequently feel disempowered by their help (Fisher, Nadler, & Whitcher-Alagna, 1982; Nadler, 2002), we predicted that participants would report lower empowerment when a White vs. Black person confronted on their behalf, and that perceived confronter motivation would mediate the effect of confronter group membership on empowerment. To test these hypotheses, we recruited African American participants (N = 477) via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, randomly assigned them to either a no confrontation control, target confrontation, or ally confrontation condition, and then assessed participants’ sense of psychological empowerment and perceptions of the confronter’s motivation. The results supported our predictions for the primary dependent variables, and mediation analyses provided evidence for a causal model such that confronter group membership affected participants’ psychological empowerment via their perceptions of the confronter’s motivation. The findings suggest that although both target and ally confrontations are preferable to no confrontation, allies should be aware of the possible disempowering effect of their confronting on targets of prejudice and the importance of their own motivations when engaging in prejudice confrontation. The current study further emphasizes the importance of representing targets’ perspectives in studies of prejudice.

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The empirical knowledgebase of intergenerational programming (IGP) largely relies on anecdotal reports by staff and family members. The lack of concrete knowledge is particularly evident in the literature regarding IGP involving elders with dementia. In an effort to fill some of the voids in the current literature base, observations were conducted for seven weeks at a co-located child and adult day program to determine the effects of IGP on 10 older adult participants (M age =81 yrs., S.D. = 5.21). All participants (5 male and 5 female) were diagnosed with dementia by a physician and attended the adult day program regularly. Intergroup contact theory, which emphasizes interdependence between groups, informed the development and facilitation of the IGP activities. A structured scale was utilized to assess the elders' social behavior and affect during IGP. Control observations were conducted during adult-only activities representative of traditional dementia-care programming, and qualitative data were collected through participant interviews and facilitator journaling to corroborate the quantitative findings. T-test analyses revealed that the older adults exhibited significantly greater levels of group social behavior and significantly fewer instances of unoccupied behavior during IGP as compared to traditional adult-only activities. The adults also expressed significantly more positive affect during IGP than in the control activities. Findings from the qualitative inquiries supported the quantitative results by emphasizing the meaning and purpose of IGP for the elders. Results indicated that effectively planned and facilitated IGP is an appropriate and interesting activity for elders with dementia. / Master of Science