Identity and Self-Other Differentiation in Work and Giving Behaviors: Experimental Evidence

Massoud Stephane, Brian McCall, Avner Ben-Ner () and Hua Wang

No 12070, Knowledge, Technology, Human Capital Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)

Abstract: We show that the distinction between Self and Other, "us" and "them," or in-group and out-group, affects significantly economic and social behavior. In a series of experiments with approximately 200 Midwestern students as our subjects, we found that they favor those who are similar to them on any of a wide range of categories of identity over those who are not like them. Whereas family and kinship are the most powerful source of identity in our sample, all 13 potential sources of identity in our experiments affect behavior. We explored individuals' willingness to give money to imaginary people, using a dictator game setup with hypothetical money. Our experiments with hypothetical money generate essentially identical data to our experiments with actual money. We also investigated individuals' willingness to share an office with, commute with, and work on a critical project critical to their advancement with individuals who are similar to themselves (Self) along a particular identity dimension than with individuals who are dissimilar (Other). In addition to family, our data point to other important sources of identity such as political views, religion, sports-team loyalty, and music preferences, followed by television-viewing habits, dress type preferences, birth order, body type, socio-economic status and gender. The importance of the source of identity varies with the type of behavior under consideration.

Keywords: Labor; and; Human; Capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 60
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Identity and Self-Other Differentiation in Work and Giving Behaviors: Experimental Evidence (2006)
Working Paper: Identity and Self-Other Differentiation in Work and Giving Behaviors: Experimental Evidence
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:feemkt:12070

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.12070

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