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National parochialism is ubiquitous across 42 nations around the world

Author

Listed:
  • Angelo Romano

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
    Leiden University, Social, Economic and Organizational Psychology)

  • Matthias Sutter

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
    University of Cologne
    University of Innsbruck)

  • James H. Liu

    (Massey University)

  • Toshio Yamagishi

    (Hitotsubashi University)

  • Daniel Balliet

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
    Institute of Brain and Behavior (IBBA))

Abstract

Cooperation within and across borders is of paramount importance for the provision of public goods. Parochialism – the tendency to cooperate more with ingroup than outgroup members – limits contributions to global public goods. National parochialism (i.e., greater cooperation among members of the same nation) could vary across nations and has been hypothesized to be associated with rule of law, exposure to world religions, relational mobility and pathogen stress. We conduct an experiment in participants from 42 nations (N = 18,411), and observe cooperation in a prisoner’s dilemma with ingroup, outgroup, and unidentified partners. We observe that national parochialism is a ubiquitous phenomenon: it is present to a similar degree across the nations studied here, is independent of cultural distance, and occurs both when decisions are private or public. These findings inform existing theories of parochialism and suggest it may be an obstacle to the provision of global public goods.

Suggested Citation

  • Angelo Romano & Matthias Sutter & James H. Liu & Toshio Yamagishi & Daniel Balliet, 2021. "National parochialism is ubiquitous across 42 nations around the world," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-24787-1
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24787-1
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    Cited by:

    1. Giacomo Degli Antoni & Gianluca Grimalda, 2024. "Is social capital bridging or bonding? Evidence from a field experiment with association members," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 97(1), pages 167-190, August.
    2. Butler, Jeffrey V. & Fehr, Dietmar, 2024. "The causal effect of cultural identity on cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 134-147.
    3. Voigt, Stefan, 2022. "Determinant of Social Norms," ILE Working Paper Series 58, University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics.
    4. Rusch, Hannes, 2023. "The logic of human intergroup conflict:," Research Memorandum 014, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    5. Gao, Shiping & Li, Nan, 2023. "Preference reversal and the evolution of cooperation," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 438(C).
    6. Alexander W. Cappelen & Benjamin Enke & Bertil Tungodden, 2022. "Universalism: Global Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9794, CESifo.
    7. Ennio Bilancini & Leonardo Boncinelli & Alessandro Tampieri, 2021. "Strategy Assortativity and the Evolution of Parochialism," DEM Discussion Paper Series 21-20, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    8. Alexander W. Cappelen & Benjamin Enke & Bertil Tungodden, 2022. "Moral Universalism: Global Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 10110, CESifo.
    9. Bogliacino, Francesco & Gómez, Camilo & Grimalda, Gianluca, 2023. "Crime-related exposure to violence and prosocial behavior: Experimental evidence from Colombia," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).

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