Cooperation in viscous populations—Experimental evidence

Grimm, Veronika; Mengel, Friederike

doi:10.1016/j.geb.2008.05.005

Cited by 35 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Our experimental evidence only partially confirms and points to a perceived reduction in uncertainty as a main motive for homophily (see below). A number of papers have considered social dilemma games with an endogenous group structure (Coricelli et al, 2004;Keser and van Winden, 2000;Grimm and Mengel, 2009;Ahn et al, 2009 among others). Since selection and exclusion -that are indeed found to affect behaviour -are based on behaviour rather than group membership or identity in these studies, they are somewhat less related to our work.…”

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confidence: 99%

Identity, homophily and in-group bias

Currarini

Mengel

2016

European Economic Review

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a b s t r a c tMany instances of social interaction display either or both of the following well-documented phenomena. People tend to interact with similar others (homophily). They also tend to treat others of shared social identity more favorably (in-group bias). While both phenomena involve some degree of discrimination towards others, a systematic study of their relations and interplay is yet missing. In this paper we report the findings of an experiment designed to address this issue. Participants are exogenously and randomly assigned to one of two groups. Subsequently they play a sequence of eight games with either an in-group or an outgroup member. In treatment EXO in-and out-group matches are formed exogenously, while in ENDO participants can choose between in-and out-group matches. We find strong evidence of in-group bias in EXO, and strong evidence of homophily in ENDO. In-group biases, however, either decrease or disappear altogether under endogenous matching. We show that self-selection of homophilous agents into in-group matches cannot explain this fact. We also find that homophily is strongly correlated with risk aversion, and we build on this evidence to derive a rationale for both the existence of homophily and the disappearance of in-group biases under endogenous matching.

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confidence: 99%

Identity, homophily and in-group bias

Currarini

Mengel

2016

European Economic Review

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“…The subjects then played an Nperson prisoner's dilemma game, where N is the community size that selected the same payoff matrix. Grimm and Mengel (2009) found that subjects cooperate significantly more when they sacrifice the defector gains. These past studies are different from our study with two important aspects.…”

Section: Hypothesis 3(e): the Percentage Of Subjects That Sort Into Tmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…They found that the centralized sanctioning institution and an informal sanctioning institution are most frequently chosen and subjects can achieve higher cooperation with these institutions. 16 Lastly, Grimm and Mengel (2009) let subjects choose one out of two payoff matrices. With one of the two payoff matrices, a subject would have not only less temptation to defect but also a less mutual defection payoff.…”

Section: Hypothesis 3(e): the Percentage Of Subjects That Sort Into Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information Disclosure and Cooperation in a Finitely-Repeated Dilemma: Experimental Evidence

Kamei

2016

SSRN Journal

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A large volume of theoretical and experimental studies have suggested that making information on people's past behaviors visible to others may lead to the evolution of cooperation in finitely-repeated environments. But, do people endogenously cooperate with randomlymatched peers by revealing their past when they have an option to hide it? This paper experimentally shows that cooperation does not evolve in a random-matching environment because a large fraction of people do not choose to reveal their past behavior. However, when a costly sorting mechanism (where disclosers are matched with other disclosers; and likewise nondisclosers with other non-disclosers) is present, a stable number of subjects decide to costly disclose their past to join the reputation community and cooperate with other disclosers. Our study at the same time shows that when the sorting process is free, the high efficiency in the reputation community decreases as strategic subjects tend to join the reputation community and attempt to exploit cooperators. These findings suggest an important role of costly sorting mechanisms in the formation of communities (including online platforms) in order for people to sustain a high level of cooperation norms.

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“…Our experimental evidence only partially confirms and points to a perceived reduction in uncertainty as a main motive for homophily (see below). A number of papers have considered public goods experiments with an endogenous group structure (Coricelli, Fehr, and Fellner (2004), Keser and van Winden (2000), Grimm and Mengel (2009) and Ahn and Salmon (2009) among others). Since selection and exclusion -that are indeed found to affect behaviour -are based on behavior rather than group membership or identity in these studies, they are somewhat less related to our work.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Identity, Homophily and In-Group Bias

Currarini

Mengel

2012

SSRN Journal

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SummaryMany Social Interactions display either or both of the following well documented phenomena. People tend to interact with similar others (homophily). And they tend to treat others more favorably if they are perceived to share the same identity (in-group bias). While both phenomena involve some degree of discrimination towards others, a systematic study of their relations and interplay is yet missing. In this paper we report thendings of an experiment designed to address this issue. Participants are exogenously and randomly assigned to one of two groups. Subsequently they play a sequence of eight games with either an in-group or an out-group member. Wend strong evidence of in-group bias when agents are matched exogenously. When agents can a ect who they are matched with, we nd strong evidence of homophily. However, in-group biases either decrease or disappear altogether under en-dogenous matching. Self selection of homophilous agents into in-group matches alone cannot explain this fact. We also show that homophily is strongly correlated with risk aversion, and we use this fact to provide an explanation for both the existence of homophily and the disappearance of in-group biases under endogenous matching. Abstract Many Social Interactions display either or both of the following well documented phenomena. People tend to interact with similar others (homophily). And they tend to treat others more favorably if they are perceived to share the same identity (in-group bias). While both phenomena involve some degree of discrimination towards others, a systematic study of their relations and interplay is yet missing. In this paper we report the findings of an experiment designed to address this issue. Participants are exogenously and randomly assigned to one of two groups. Subsequently they play a sequence of eight games with either an in-group or an out-group member. We find strong evidence of in-group bias when agents are matched exogenously. When agents can affect who they are matched with, we find strong evidence of homophily. However, in-group biases either decrease or disappear altogether under endogenous matching. Self selection of homophilous agents into in-group matches alone cannot explain this fact. We also show that homophily is strongly correlated with risk aversion, and we use this fact to provide an explanation for both the existence of homophily and the disappearance of in-group biases under endogenous matching. Keywords

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Cooperation in viscous populations—Experimental evidence

Cited by 35 publications

References 23 publications

Identity, homophily and in-group bias

Identity, homophily and in-group bias

Information Disclosure and Cooperation in a Finitely-Repeated Dilemma: Experimental Evidence

Identity, Homophily and In-Group Bias

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