Which social categories matter to people: An experiment

Wifag Adnan, Kerim Arin, Gary Charness, Juan A. Lacomba and Francisco Lagos

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, vol. 193, issue C, 125-145

Abstract: Social categories matter to people, but it is not obvious ex ante which ones matter more. To explore this, we conduct a novel experimental market of anonymous partners based on social categories. Participants have the option of choosing or discarding a peer according to their gender, ethnicity, and religion. Our research design allows us to explore whether individuals prioritize social categories when selecting a peer and whether the order in which social categories are prioritized is context dependent. Considering both free and costly decisions, two economic contexts are evaluated: donations (dictator game) and investments (risk game). We find that when selecting a partner, gender appears to be the dominant social category across different conditions, with subjects exhibiting sharp preferences for being matched with a female partner. However, the partner's religion gains prominence as a requested social category when issues concerning social-group decision-making become relevant to one's own payoffs. Finally, we find that choosing social categories seems to have economic consequences both by increasing economic donations and increasing investments.

Keywords: Social categories; Gender; Religion; Ethnicity; Discrimination; Donation; Investment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D01 D91 J15 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:193:y:2022:i:c:p:125-145

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.11.010

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