Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-dkgms Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-16T16:16:07.470Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is it a norm to favour your own group?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Donna Harris ,
Benedikt Herrmann ,
Andreas Kontoleon  and
Jonathan Newton
Donna Harris*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Oxford, Manor Road, OX1 3UQ Oxford, UK
Benedikt Herrmann*
Affiliation:
Behavioural Economics Team, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Bruxelles, Belgium
Andreas Kontoleon
Affiliation:
Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, The European Commission Joint Research Centre, Behavioural Economics Group, Via E. Fermi 2749, 21027 Ispra, Varese, Italy
Jonathan Newton
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
*
donhatai.harris@economics.ox.ac.uk
Benedikt.herrmann@ec.europa.eu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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 behaviour. 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.

Keywords

In-group favouritismGroup identitySocial normsIn-group punishmentOut-group punishmentThird-party punishment

JEL classification

D73: Bureaucracy • Administrative Processes in Public Organizations • Corruption D70: General C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 491 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-014-9417-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Jonathan Newton is a recipient of a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award funded by the Australian Research Council.

References

Anderson, S (2011). Castes as an impediment to trade. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 3, 239–263.Google Scholar
Andreoni, J (2007). Giving gifts to groups: How altruism depends on the number of recipients. Journal of Public Economics, 91, 1731–1749. 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2007.06.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aron, A, Aron, E, & Smollan, D (1992). Inclusion of other in the self scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 596–612. 10.1037/0022-3514.63.4.596CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bandiera, O, Barankay, I, & Rasul, I (2009). Social connections and incentive in the work place:Evidence from personnel data. Econometrica, 77(4), 1047–1094. 10.3982/ECTA6496Google Scholar
Barr, A, & Oduro, A (2002). Ethnic fractionalization in an African labour market. Journal of Development Economics, 68, 355–379. 10.1016/S0304-3878(02)00017-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G (1957). The economics of discrimination, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Belot, M, & van de Ven, J (2011). Friendships and favouritism on the schoolground—A framed field experiment. The Economic Journal, 212, 1251–1288.Google Scholar
Bernhard, H, Fehr, E, & Fischbacher, U (2006). Group affiliation and altruistic norm enforcement. American Economic Review, 96(2), 217–221. 10.1257/000282806777212594CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernhard, H, Fischbacher, U, & Fehr, E (2006). Parochial altruism in humans. Nature, 442, 912–915. 10.1038/nature04981CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carpenter, J, & Mattews, P (2010). Norm enforcement: The role of third parties. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 166, 239–258. 10.1628/093245610791343003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, J, & Matthews, P (2009). What norms trigger punishment. Experimental Economics, 12(3), 272–288. 10.1007/s10683-009-9214-zCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casari, M, & Luini, L (2012). Peer punishment in teams: Expressive or instrumental choice?. Experimental Economics, 15(2), 241–259. 10.1007/s10683-011-9292-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charness, G, Gneezy, U, & Kuhn, MA (2012). Experimental methods: Between-subject and within-subject design. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 81(1), 1–8. 10.1016/j.jebo.2011.08.009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charness, G, & Rabin, M (2002). Understand social preferences with simple tests. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117(3), 817–869. 10.1162/003355302760193904CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charness, G, Rigotti, L, & Rustichini, A (2007). Individual behaviour and group membership. American Economic Review, 97(4), 1340–1352. 10.1257/aer.97.4.1340CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charness, G., & Schram, A. (2013) Social and Moral Norms in Allocation Choices the Laboratory, Department of Economics, UCSB Working Papers qt0t39x0pt.Google Scholar
Chen, Y, & Li, X (2009). Group identity and social preferences. American Economic Review, 99(1), 431–457. 10.1257/aer.99.1.431CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cialdini, R, Brown, S, Lewis, B, Luce, C, & Neuber, S (1997). Reinterpreting the empathy—altruism relationship: When one into one equals oneness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(3), 481–494. 10.1037/0022-3514.73.3.481CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Falk, A., & Zehnder, C. (2007). Discrimination and in-group favoritism in a citywide trust experiment. Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich, Working Paper No. 318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E, & Fischbacher, U (2004). Social norms and human cooperation. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 8(4), 184–189. 10.1016/j.tics.2004.02.007CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fehr, E, & Fischbacher, U (2004). Third-party punishment and social norms. Evolution and Human Behaviour, 25, 63–87. 10.1016/S1090-5138(04)00005-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E, & Gaechter, S (2000). Fairness and retaliation: The economics of reciprocity. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(3), 159–181. 10.1257/jep.14.3.159CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E, & Schmidt, F (1999). A theory of fairness, competition, and cooperation. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114(3), 817–868. 10.1162/003355399556151CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fershtman, C., Gneezy, U., & Verboven, F. (2005). Discrimination and nepotism: The effciency of the anonymity rule. Journal of Legal Studies, 34, 371–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischbacher, U (2007). z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments. Experimental Economics, 10(2), 171–178. 10.1007/s10683-006-9159-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisman, R. (2003). Ethnic ties and the provision of credit: Relationship-level evidence from African firms. Advances in Economic Analysis and Policy, 3(1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaeser, E., Laibson, D., Scheinkman, J., & Soutter, C. (2000). Measuring trust. Quaterly Journal of Economics, 115(3), 811–846.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Global Competitiveness Report. (2012). The World Bank.Google Scholar
Goette, L, Huffmann, D, & Meier, S (2006). The impact of group membership on cooperation and norm enforcement: Evidence using random assignment to real social groups. American Economic Review, 96(2), 212–216. 10.1257/000282806777211658CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greiner, K. (2004). An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments. MPRA Paper, Germany: University Library of Munich.Google Scholar
Guth, W, Levati, M, & Ploner, M (2008). Social identity and trust: An experimental investigation. Journal of Socio-Economics, 37(4), 1293–1308. 10.1016/j.socec.2006.12.080Google Scholar
Hair, J. F. Jr., Anderson, R., Tatham, R. & Black, W. (1998). Multivariate data analysis with readings (5th ed.). New York: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Harris, D., Herrmann, B., & Kontoleon, A. (2009). Two’s Company, Three’s a Group: The Impact of Group Identity and Group Size on In-group Favouritism, Centre for Decision Research & Experimental Economics, University of Nottingham, Working paper No. 2009–13.Google Scholar
Herrmann, B., Thoni, C., & Gaechter, S. (2008). Antisocial punishment across societies. Science, 319(5868), 1362–1367.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff, K, Kshetramade, M, & Fehr, E (2011). Caste and punishment: The legacy of caste culture in norm enforcement. The Economic Journal, 121(556), F449–F475. 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2011.02476.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jost, J. (2000). Group-based dominance and opposition to equality as independent predictors of self-esteem, ethnocentrism, and social policy attitudes among African Americans and European Americans. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 209–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, J.O., & Mueller, C. W. (1978). Introduction to factor analysis: What is it and how to do it. New York: McGraw-Hill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leibbrandt, A., & López-Pérez, R. (2012). An exploration of third and second party punishment in ten simple games. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 84(3), 753–766.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLeish, K. N., & Oxoby, R. J. (2007). Identity, cooperation, and punishment. Institute of the Study of Labor (IZA). IZA Discussion Papers 2572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L., & Malle, B. (1994). Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 779–800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Predergast, C, & Topel, RH (1996). Favoritism in organizations. Journal of Political Economy, 104(5), 958–978. 10.1086/262048CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabin, M (1993). Incorporating fairness into game theory and economics. American Economic Review, 83, 1281–1302.Google Scholar
Raubenheimer, J. (2004). An item selection procedure to maximize scale reliability and va- lidity. South African Journal of Industrial Psychology, 30(4), 59–64.Google Scholar
Sidanius, J., Levin, S., Liu, J., & Pratto, F. (2000). Social dominance orientation, anti-egalitarianism and the political psychology of gender: An extension and cross-cultural replication. European Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 41–67.3.0.CO;2-O>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stahl, D, & Haruvy, E (2006). Other-regarding preferences: Egalitarian warm glow, empathy, and group size. Journal of Behavior and Organization, 61, 20–41. 10.1016/j.jebo.2004.10.008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, J, Billig, M, Bundy, R, & Flament, C (1971). Social categorization in intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 149–178. 10.1002/ejsp.2420010202CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, H, Turner, J Worchel, S, & Austin, L (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Chicago: Nelson-Hall.Google Scholar
Widaman, K. (1993). Common factor analysis versus principal component analysis: Differential bias in representing model parameters?. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 28, 263–311.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Xiao, E (2013). Profit-seeking punishment corrupts norm obedience. Game and Economic Behavior, 77, 321–344. 10.1016/j.geb.2012.10.010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamagishi, T, & Kiyonari, T (2000). The group as the container of generalized reciprocity. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63(2), 161–197. 10.2307/2695887CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, P. (1993). The evolution of conventions. Econometrica, 61(1), 57–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zizzo, D (2010). Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments. Experimental Economics, 13, 75–98. 10.1007/s10683-009-9230-zCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Harris et al. supplementary material

Appendix
Download Harris et al. supplementary material(File)
File 128.3 KB