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Is it a norm to favour your own group?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

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

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.

Type
Original Paper
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Economic Science Association

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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.

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