Is it a Norm to Favour Your Own Group?

Donna Harris, Benedikt Herrmann, Andreas Kontoleon and Jonathan Newtonor
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Jonathan Newton

No 719, Economics Series Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics

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 behavour. 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.

Keywords: In-group Favouritism; Group Identity; Social Norms; In-group Punishment; Out-group Punishment; Third-party Punishment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D70 D73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-08-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cdm, nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-soc
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Journal Article: Is it a norm to favour your own group? (2015)
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