IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/1374.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • Sgroi, Daniel

    (University of Warwick)

  • Yeo, Jonathan

    (Nanyang Technological University)

  • 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," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1374, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:1374
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2021/twerp_1374_-_sgroi.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ravetti, Chiara & Sarr, Mare & Munene, Daniel & Swanson, Tim, 2019. "Discrimination and favouritism among South African workers: Ethnic identity and union membership," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Benn Eifert & Edward Miguel & Daniel N. Posner, 2010. "Political Competition and Ethnic Identification in Africa," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 494-510, April.
    3. Dixit, Avinash & Weibull, Jörgen, 2006. "Political Polarization," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 655, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 19 Apr 2007.
    4. Daniel J. Benjamin & James J. Choi & A. Joshua Strickland, 2010. "Social Identity and Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1913-1928, September.
    5. Shanto Iyengar & Sean J. Westwood, 2015. "Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(3), pages 690-707, July.
    6. Jim A C Everett, 2013. "The 12 Item Social and Economic Conservatism Scale (SECS)," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-11, December.
    7. David Atkin & Eve Colson-Sihra & Moses Shayo, 2021. "How Do We Choose Our Identity? A Revealed Preference Approach Using Food Consumption," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(4), pages 1193-1251.
    8. LeBoeuf, Robyn A. & Shafir, Eldar & Bayuk, Julia Belyavsky, 2010. "The conflicting choices of alternating selves," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 48-61, January.
    9. Victoire Girard & Nicolas Berman & Mathieu Couttenier, 2020. "Natural resources and the salience of ethnic identities," NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series wp2007, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA.
    10. Yan Chen & Sherry Xin Li, 2009. "Group Identity and Social Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 431-457, March.
    11. Lane, Tom, 2016. "Discrimination in the laboratory: A meta-analysis of economics experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 375-402.
    12. Chen, Yan & Li, Sherry Xin & Liu, Tracy Xiao & Shih, Margaret, 2014. "Which hat to wear? Impact of natural identities on coordination and cooperation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 58-86.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lane, Tom, 2024. "The strategic use of social identity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 355-368.
    2. Cacault, Maria Paula & Grieder, Manuel, 2019. "How group identification distorts beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 63-76.
    3. Billur Aksoy & Ian Chadd & Boon Han Koh, 2022. "(Anticipated) Discrimination against Sexual Minorities in Prosocial Domains," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2021-08, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    4. Astorne, Carmen, 2023. "Noisy Identity and Cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 203-234.
    5. Chang, Daphne & Chen, Roy & Krupka, Erin, 2019. "Rhetoric matters: A social norms explanation for the anomaly of framing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 158-178.
    6. Aksoy, Billur & Chadd, Ian & Koh, Boon Han, 2023. "Sexual identity, gender, and anticipated discrimination in prosocial behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    7. Li, Sherry Xin & de Oliveira, Angela C.M. & Eckel, Catherine, 2017. "Common identity and the voluntary provision of public goods: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 32-46.
    8. repec:ces:ceswps:_10606 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Drouvelis, Michalis & Malaeb, Bilal & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Wahba, Jackline, 2021. "Cooperation in a fragmented society: Experimental evidence on Syrian refugees and natives in Lebanon," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 176-191.
    10. Fuhai Hong & Yohanes E. Riyanto & Ruike Zhang, 2022. "Multidimensional social identity and redistributive preferences: an experimental study," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 151-184, July.
    11. Dickinson, David L. & Masclet, David & Peterle, Emmanuel, 2018. "Discrimination as favoritism: The private benefits and social costs of in-group favoritism in an experimental labor market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 220-236.
    12. Vecci, Joseph & Zelinsky, Tomas, 2016. "Social Identity and Role Models," Working Papers in Economics 672, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    13. Luo, Jun & Wang, Xinxin, 2020. "Hukou identity and trust—Evidence from a framed field experiment in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    14. Marie Claire Villeval, 2021. "Group Identity and Social Preferences by Yan Chen and Sherry X. Li," Post-Print halshs-03504258, HAL.
    15. Eugen Dimant, 2020. "Hate Trumps Love: The Impact of Political Polarization on Social Preferences," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 029, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    16. Chmura, Thorsten & Goerg, Sebastian J. & Weiss, Pia, 2016. "Natural groups and economic characteristics as driving forces of wage discrimination," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 178-200.
    17. Mobius, Markus & Rosenblat, Tanya & Wang, Qiqi, 2016. "Ethnic discrimination: Evidence from China," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 165-177.
    18. Butler, Jeffrey V. & Fehr, Dietmar, 2024. "The causal effect of cultural identity on cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 134-147.
    19. Jiang, Jiang & Li, Sherry Xin, 2019. "Group identity and partnership," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 202-213.
    20. Cochard, François & Flage, Alexandre & Peterle, Emmanuel, 2019. "Intermediation and discrimination in an investment game: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 196-208.
    21. Clist, Paul & Verschoor, Arjan, 2017. "Multilingualism and public goods provision: An experiment in two languages in Uganda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 47-57.

    More about this item

    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

    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:wrk:warwec:1374. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.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.