On the social appropriateness of discrimination

Abigail Barr, Tom Lane () and Daniele Nosenzo

No 2015-25, Discussion Papers from The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham

Abstract: We experimentally investigate the relationship between discriminatory behaviour and the perceived social appropriateness of discrimination. We test the framework of Akerlof and Kranton (2000,2005), which suggests discrimination will be stronger when social norms favour it. Our results support this prediction. Using a Krupka-Weber social norm elicitation task, we find participants perceive it to be more socially appropriate to discriminate on the basis of social identities artificially induced, using a trivial minimal group technique, than on the basis of nationality. Correspondingly, we find that participants discriminate more in the artificial identity setting. Our results suggest norms and the preference to comply with them affect discriminatory decisions and that the social inappropriateness of discrimination can be a moderator of discriminatory behaviour.

Keywords: Discrimination; Social norms; Krupka-Weber method; Allocator game (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cedex/documents/paper ... on-paper-2017-11.pdf Revised Version 2017-11 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: On the social inappropriateness of discrimination (2018)
Working Paper: On the social inappropriateness of discrimination (2017)
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:not:notcdx:2015-25

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham School of Economics University of Nottingham University Park Nottingham NG7 2RD. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jose V Guinot Saporta ().