Social identity and social free-riding

Mark Bernard, Florian Hett and Mario Mechtel

European Economic Review, 2016, vol. 90, issue C, 4-17

Abstract: We model individual identification choice as a strategic group formation problem. When choosing a social group to identify with, individuals appreciate high social status and a group stereotype to which they have a small social distance. A group׳s social status and stereotype are shaped by the (exogenous) individual attributes of its members and hence endogenous to individuals׳ choices. Unless disutility from social distance is strong enough, this creates a strategic tension as individuals with attributes that contribute little to group status would like to join high-status groups, thereby diluting the latters׳ status and changing stereotypes. Such social free-riding motivates the use of soft exclusion technologies in high-status groups, which provides a unifying rationale for phenomena such as hazing rituals, charitable activities or status symbols that is not taste-based or follows a standard signaling mechanism.

Keywords: Social identity; Social status; Social distance; Categorization; Group formation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C7 D1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292116000052
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Social Identity and Social Free-Riding (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:90:y:2016:i:c:p:4-17

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2016.01.001

Access Statistics for this article

European Economic Review is currently edited by T.S. Eicher, A. Imrohoroglu, E. Leeper, J. Oechssler and M. Pesendorfer

More articles in European Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().