Group Identity and Social Preferences

Cao, Yan; Li, Sherry Xin

doi:10.1257/aer.99.1.431

Cited by 1,246 publications

(1,154 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Experimental evidence from laboratory [Brewer, 1979;Chen and Li, 2009;Kinzler et al, 2007;Koopmans and Rebers, 2009;Tajfel and Turner, 1979;Tajfel et al, 1971] and field studies [Bernhard et al, 2006;Fehr et al, 2008;Goette et al, 2006] demonstrates that parochial altruism strongly shapes the compliance and enforcement of social norms. Parochial altruism constitutes a persuasive psychological phenomenon which is qualified by a preference for altruistic behavior towards the members of one's ethnic, racial, or any other social group, combined with a tendency for indifference, mistrust, or even hostility toward outgroup members [Brewer, 1999;Hewstone et al, 2002].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The mentalizing network orchestrates the impact of parochial altruism on social norm enforcement

Baumgärtner

Götte

Gugler

et al. 2011

Human Brain Mapping

151

150

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Parochial altruism-a preference for altruistic behavior towards ingroup members and mistrust or hostility towards outgroup members-is a pervasive feature in human society and strongly shapes the enforcement of social norms. Since the uniqueness of human society critically depends on the enforcement of norms, the understanding of the neural circuitry of the impact of parochial altruism on social norm enforcement is key, but unexplored. To fill this gap, we measured brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subjects had the opportunity to punish ingroup members and outgroup members for violating social norms. Findings revealed that subjects' strong punishment of defecting outgroup members is associated with increased activity in a functionally connected network involved in sanction-related decisions (right orbitofrontal gyrus, right lateral prefrontal cortex, right dorsal caudatus). Moreover, the stronger the connectivity in this network, the more outgroup members are punished. In contrast, the much weaker punishment of ingroup members who committed the very same norm violation is associated with increased activity and connectivity in the mentalizing-network (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, bilateral temporo-parietal junction), as if subjects tried to understand or justify ingroup members' behavior. Finally, connectivity analyses between the two networks suggest that the mentalizing-network modulates punishment by affecting the activity in the right orbitofrontal gyrus and right lateral prefrontal cortex, notably in the same areas showing enhanced activity and connectivity whenever third-parties strongly punished defecting outgroup members.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The mentalizing network orchestrates the impact of parochial altruism on social norm enforcement

Baumgärtner

Götte

Gugler

et al. 2011

Human Brain Mapping

151

150

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“…In-group favouritism, or solidarity, is a well-documented aspect of human behaviour [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. People offer preferable treatment towards members of their own group and discriminate against those belonging to other groups [4][5][6][7][8][9][10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperation during cultural group formation promotes trust towards members of out-groups

Pan

Houser

2013

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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People often cooperate with members of their own group, and discriminate against members of other groups. Previous research establishes that cultural groups can form endogenously, and that these groups demonstrate ingroup favouritism. Given the presence of cultural groups, the previous literature argues that cultural evolution selects for groups that exhibit parochial altruism. The source of initial variation in these traits, however, remains uninformed. We show here that a group's economic production environment may substantially influence parochial tendencies, with groups formed around more cooperative production (CP) displaying less parochialism than groups formed around more independent production (IP) processes. Participants randomized into CP and IP production tasks formed cultural groups, and subsequently played hidden-action trust games with in-group and outgroup trustees. We found CP to be associated with significantly greater sharing and exchanging behaviours than IP. In trust games, significant parochial altruism (in-group favouritism combined with out-group discrimination) was displayed by members of IP groups. By contrast, members of CP groups did not engage in either in-group favouritism or out-group discrimination. Further, we found the absence of out-group discrimination in CP to persist even following 'betrayal'. Finally, belief data suggest that members of CP are not more intrinsically generous than IP members, but rather more likely to believe that out-group trustees will positively reciprocate. Our results have important implications for anyone interested in building cooperative teams, and shed new light on connections between culture and cooperation.

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“…The on-screen experiment is programmed in z-tree (Fischbacher, 2007). Group membership is induced, conditional on the subjects' preferences for paintings (Chen & Li, 2009), and reinforced by letting groups compete in a real-effort task (Rockenbach, Böhm, & Weiss, 2013). Each of the 15 sessions conducted in the Bonn EconLab comprises 16 participants recruited via ORSEE (Greiner, 2004).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a large literature showing that decreasing social distance (Charness & Gneezy, 2008;Frey & Bohnet, 1999;Hoffman, McCabe, & Smith, 1996;Leider, Möbius, Rosenblat, & Do, 2009Rankin, 2006), increasing social integration (Brañas-Garza et al, 2010), or inducing a common group identity (Chen & Li, 2009;Dawes, Van de Kragt, & Orbell, 1988) between participants leads social preferences to play out more strongly in dictator games. But none of the cited studies treats belief-dependent preferences.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The procedure is adapted from Chen and Li (2009): For five pairs of paintings by Klee and Kandinsky (the same paintings as in Chen and Li (2009)), subjects are asked to state how much they prefer one painting to another. To answer this question, participants use a slider bar (labeled in three steps [L=left, R=right]: I strongly prefer L, I like both paintings equally, I strongly prefer R).…”

Section: Group Segregation Stagementioning

confidence: 99%

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The Short Arm of Guilt: Does it Only Hit Who is Close?

Morell

2014

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractIn a laboratory experiment, I test whether guilt aversion, i.e., a preference to fulfill other people's expectations, plays out stronger if agents are socially close. I induce two different minimal group identities in participants and randomly assign participants to one of two treatments. Senders either play a dictator game with a receiver from their own group (ingroup treatment) or from the other group (outgroup treatment). I let senders condition their amount sent on second-order beliefs. I find that, in the realm of realistic beliefs (i.e., the sender expects the receiver to expect the sender to send no more than half of the pie), the positive influence of second-order beliefs on how much the sender sends is stronger in the ingroup treatment. In both treatments, about half of the senders remain unaffected by second-order beliefs. In the ingroup treatment, unaffected senders identify less with their group than affected senders do. This is not true for the outgroup treatment.

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Group Identity and Social Preferences

Cited by 1,246 publications

References 44 publications

The mentalizing network orchestrates the impact of parochial altruism on social norm enforcement

The mentalizing network orchestrates the impact of parochial altruism on social norm enforcement

Cooperation during cultural group formation promotes trust towards members of out-groups

The Short Arm of Guilt: Does it Only Hit Who is Close?

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