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Ingroup Bias with Multiple Identities: The Case of Religion and Attitudes Towards Government Size

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  • Sgroi, Daniel

    (University of Warwick)

  • Yeo, Jonathan

    (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)

  • Zhuo, Shi

    (University of Warwick)

Abstract

Group identity is known to exert a powerful socio-psychological influence on behaviour but to date has been largely explored as a uni-dimensional phenomenon. We consider the role of multiple dimensions of identity, asking what might happen to ingroup and outgroup perceptions and the resulting implications for cooperation. Carefully selecting two politically charged identity dimensions documented to have similar strength and to be largely orthogonal (religious belief and views about government size), we find that priming individuals to consider both dimensions rather than one has a noticeable effect on behaviour. Moving from one to two dimensions can produce a significant increase in ingroup allocations at the expense of fairness to outgroup individuals, although the effect varies as we switch from primarily considering religion to government size. Evidence suggests that the heterogeneity of such effects is related to the degree of "harmony" between groups in the dimensions concerned.

Suggested Citation

  • Sgroi, Daniel & Yeo, Jonathan & Zhuo, Shi, 2021. "Ingroup Bias with Multiple Identities: The Case of Religion and Attitudes Towards Government Size," IZA Discussion Papers 14714, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14714
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    group identity; multiple identities; religion; government size; experiment; behavioural economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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