IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oxf/wpaper/719.html

Is it a Norm to Favour Your Own Group?

Author

Listed:
  • Donna Harris
  • Benedikt Herrmann
  • Andreas Kontoleon
  • Jonathan Newtonor

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between norm enforcement and in-group favouritism behaviour. Using a new two-stage allocation experiment with punishments, we investigate whether in-group favouritism is considered as a social norm in itself or as a violation of a different norm, such as egalitarian norm. We find that which norm of behaviour is enforced depends on who the punisher is. If the punishers belong to the in-group, in-group favouritism is considered a norm and it does not get punished. If the punishers belong to the out-group, in-group favouritism is frequently punished. If the punishers belong to no group and merely observe in-group favouritism (the third-party), they do not seem to care sufficiently to be willing to punish this behavour. Our results shed a new light on the effectiveness of altruistic norm enforcement when group identities are taken into account and help to explain why in-group favouritism is widespread across societies.

Suggested Citation

  • Donna Harris & Benedikt Herrmann & Andreas Kontoleon & Jonathan Newtonor, 2014. "Is it a Norm to Favour Your Own Group?," Economics Series Working Papers 719, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:719
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:255834c2-34a9-4324-8207-2a8e7137bc42
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barr, Abigail & Lane, Tom & Nosenzo, Daniele, 2018. "On the social inappropriateness of discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 153-164.
    2. Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & J Rosaz & J F Shogren, 2021. "Can we commit future managers to honesty?," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-03277342, HAL.
    3. Kate Farrow & Gilles Grolleau & Lisette Ibanez, 2017. "Designing more effective norm interventions: the role of valence," Post-Print hal-01680539, HAL.
    4. Müller, Daniel, 2019. "The anatomy of distributional preferences with group identity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 785-807.
    5. Billur Aksoy & Marco A. Palma, "undated". "The Effects of Scarcity on Cheating and In-Group Favoritism," Working Papers 20180918-001, Texas A&M University, Department of Economics.
    6. Deffains, Bruno & Espinosa, Romain & Fluet, Claude, 2019. "Laws and norms: Experimental evidence with liability rules," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    7. Cadsby, C. Bram & Du, Ninghua & Song, Fei, 2016. "In-group favoritism and moral decision-making," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 59-71.
    8. Lu Dong & Lingbo Huang, 2018. "Favoritism and Fairness in Teams," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-15, September.
    9. Paetzel, Fabian & Sausgruber, Rupert, 2018. "Cognitive ability and in-group bias: An experimental study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 280-292.
    10. Higashida, Keisaku & Higuchi, Yuki & Hossain, Mohammad Mosharraf & Sujauddin, Mohammad & Takahashi, Ryo & Tanaka, Kenta, 2025. "Are social norms an obstacle to honest behavior? Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    11. Shaun P. Hargreaves Heap & Eugenio Levi & Abhijit Ramalingam, 2021. "Group identification and giving: in-group love, out-group hate and their crowding out," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2021-07, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    12. Chang, Daphne & Chen, Roy & Krupka, Erin L. & Song, Zhewei, 2024. "Do policy instruments that restrict social identity expression increase economic cooperation?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    13. Aksoy, Billur & Palma, Marco A., 2019. "The effects of scarcity on cheating and in-group favoritism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 100-117.
    14. Artavia-Mora, Luis & Bedi, Arjun S. & Rieger, Matthias, 2018. "Help, Prejudice and Headscarves," IZA Discussion Papers 11460, IZA Network @ LISER.
    15. Gцnьl Dogan & Luke Glowacki & Hannes Rusch, 2020. "Ingroup Love Drives Ingroup Bias within Natural Groups," Working Paper Series in Economics 101, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    16. Tor Eriksson & Lei Mao & Marie Claire Villeval, 2017. "Saving face and group identity," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(3), pages 622-647, September.
    17. Crawford, Ian & Harris, Donna, 2018. "Social interactions and the influence of “extremists”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 238-266.
    18. Thomas, Ranjeeta & Galizzi, Matteo M. & Moorhouse, Louisa & Nyamukapa, Constance & Hallett, Timothy B., 2024. "Do risk, time and prosocial preferences predict risky sexual behaviour of youths in a low-income, high-risk setting?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    19. A Nilesh Fernando & Siddharth Eapen George, 2024. "Peer pressure and discrimination: evidence from international cricket†," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(3), pages 729-752.
    20. Paetzel, Fabian & Sausgruber, Rupert, 2017. "Entitlements and Loyalty in Groups: An Experimental Study," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168224, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    21. Oppel, Annalena, 2021. "Normalizing necessity? Support networks and racial inequality in Namibia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    22. Solferino, Nazaria & Taurino, SerenaFiona & Tessitore, M.Elisabetta, 2016. "Boosting cooperation between agents in diverse groups: a dynamical model of prosocial behavior, free-riding and coercive solutions," MPRA Paper 71283, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    23. Annalena Oppel, 2021. "Exploring economic support networks amidst racial inequality in Namibia," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-102, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:719. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anne Pouliquen The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Anne Pouliquen to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfeixuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.