IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v30y2009i5p814-827.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Determinants of in-group bias: Is group affiliation mediated by guilt-aversion?

Author

Listed:
  • Güth, Werner
  • Ploner, Matteo
  • Regner, Tobias

Abstract

In-group favoritism in social dilemma situations is one of Social Identity Theory's main findings. We investigate what causes the in-group bias: is it merely due to group affiliation or, alternatively, is guilt-aversion moderating the strength of in-group favoring? We induce group membership in a minimal group setting, observe in-/out-group transfers and elicit corresponding beliefs. According to our experimental data group affiliation affects beliefs and explains a substantial part of the bias. Evidence for guilt-aversion is found only when beliefs are elicited before actions.

Suggested Citation

  • Güth, Werner & Ploner, Matteo & Regner, Tobias, 2009. "Determinants of in-group bias: Is group affiliation mediated by guilt-aversion?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 814-827, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:30:y:2009:i:5:p:814-827
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-4870(09)00069-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    2. Lorenz Goette & David Huffman & Stephan Meier, 2006. "The Impact of Group Membership on Cooperation and Norm Enforcement: Evidence Using Random Assignment to Real Social Groups," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 212-216, May.
    3. Schotter, Andrew & Sopher, Barry, 2007. "Advice and behavior in intergenerational ultimatum games: An experimental approach," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 365-393, February.
    4. Güth, Werner & Levati, M. Vittoria & Ploner, Matteo, 2008. "Social identity and trust--An experimental investigation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1293-1308, August.
    5. Simon Gächter & Elke Renner, 2010. "The effects of (incentivized) belief elicitation in public goods experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(3), pages 364-377, September.
    6. John Geanakoplos & David Pearce & Ennio Stacchetti, 2010. "Psychological Games and Sequential Rationality," Levine's Working Paper Archive 587, David K. Levine.
    7. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    8. Reuben, Ernesto & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2009. "Is mistrust self-fulfilling?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 89-91, August.
    9. Martin Dufwenberg & Simon Gaechter & Heike Hennig-Schmidt, 2006. "The Framing of Games and the Psychology of Strategic Choice," Discussion Papers 2006-20, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    10. Helen Bernhard & Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2006. "Group Affiliation and Altruistic Norm Enforcement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 217-221, May.
    11. Ruffle, Bradley J. & Sosis, Richard, 2006. "Cooperation and the in-group-out-group bias: A field test on Israeli kibbutz members and city residents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 147-163, June.
    12. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    13. Gary Charness & Luca Rigotti & Aldo Rustichini, 2007. "Individual Behavior and Group Membership," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1340-1352, September.
    14. Croson, Rachel T. A., 2000. "Thinking like a game theorist: factors affecting the frequency of equilibrium play," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 299-314, March.
    15. Geanakoplos, John & Pearce, David & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1989. "Psychological games and sequential rationality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 60-79, March.
    16. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1986. "Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 251-278, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dufwenberg, Martin & Gächter, Simon & Hennig-Schmidt, Heike, 2011. "The framing of games and the psychology of play," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 459-478.
    2. Morita, Hodaka & Servátka, Maroš, 2013. "Group identity and relation-specific investment: An experimental investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 95-109.
    3. Charles Bellemare & Alexander Sebald & Sigrid Suetens, 2018. "Heterogeneous guilt sensitivities and incentive effects," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(2), pages 316-336, June.
    4. Jiang, Jiang & Li, Sherry Xin, 2019. "Group identity and partnership," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 202-213.
    5. Dufwenberg, Martin & Gächter, Simon & Henning-Schmidt, Heike, 2006. "The framing of games and the psychology of strategic choice," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 19/2006, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    6. Bracht, Jürgen & Regner, Tobias, 2013. "Moral emotions and partnership," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 313-326.
    7. Reuben, Ernesto & van Winden, Frans, 2010. "Fairness perceptions and prosocial emotions in the power to take," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 908-922, December.
    8. Francesco Guala & Luigi Mittone & Matteo Ploner, 2009. "Group Membership, Team Preferences, and Expectations (A new version of this paper is available as CEEL WP 3-12)," CEEL Working Papers 0906, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    9. Smith, Alexander, 2011. "Group composition and conditional cooperation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 616-622.
    10. Ederer, Florian & Stremitzer, Alexander, 2017. "Promises and expectations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 161-178.
    11. Khalmetski, Kiryl & Ockenfels, Axel & Werner, Peter, 2015. "Surprising gifts: Theory and laboratory evidence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 163-208.
    12. Ockenfels, Axel & Werner, Peter, 2014. "Beliefs and ingroup favoritism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 453-462.
    13. Bernd Irlenbusch & Janna Ter Meer, 2015. "Lying in public good games with and without punishment," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 06-02, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences.
    14. Bernd Irlenbusch & Janna Ter Meer, 2012. "Fooling the Nice Guys: The effect of lying about contributions on public good provision and punishment," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 03-11, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences.
    15. Francesco Guala & Antonio Filippin, 2017. "The Effect of Group Identity on Distributive Choice: Social Preference or Heuristic?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(602), pages 1047-1068, June.
    16. Balafoutas, Loukas, 2011. "Public beliefs and corruption in a repeated psychological game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 51-59, April.
    17. Martin Dufwenberg & Simon Gaechter & Heike Hennig-Schmidt, 2006. "The Framing of Games and the Psychology of Strategic Choice," Discussion Papers 2006-20, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    18. Attanasi, Giuseppe & Rimbaud, Claire & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2023. "Guilt aversion in (new) games: Does partners' payoff vulnerability matter?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 690-717.
    19. Roman Inderst & Kiryl Khalmetski & Axel Ockenfels, 2019. "Sharing Guilt: How Better Access to Information May Backfire," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(7), pages 3322-3336, July.
    20. Giovanni Di Bartolomeo & Stefano Papa, 2019. "The Effects of Physical Activity on Social Interactions: The Case of Trust and Trustworthiness," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(1), pages 50-71, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:30:y:2009:i:5:p:814-827. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.