American Economic Review Vol. 97 No. 4 2007

Individual Behavior and Group Membership

Gary Charness¹; Luca Rigotti²; Aldo Rustichini³

¹ Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbarba, 2127 North Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9210. · ² Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Box 90120, Durham, NC 27708. · ³ Department of Economics, University of Minnesota, 1035 Heller Hall, 271 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455.

Abstract

People who are members of a group and identify with it behave differently from people who perceive themselves as isolated individuals. This paper shows that group membership affects preferences over outcomes, and saliency of the group affects the perception of the environment. We manipulate the saliency of group membership by letting a player's own group watch as a passive audience as decisions are made, and/or by making part of the payoff common for members of the group. In contrast to the minimal-group paradigm, minimal groups alone do not affect behavior in our strategic environments. However, salient group membership significantly increases the aggressive stance of the hosts (people who have their group members in the audience), and tends to reduce that of the guests.

DOI

10.1257/aer.97.4.1340

Volume

97

Issue

4

Pages

1340-1352

Language

en

Sources

crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex

Cite

APA 7 MLA 9 Chicago (author–date) Harvard Elsevier Harvard (JFE, JBF…) The Accounting Review Academy of Management American Marketing Association INFORMS (Management Science) Copy citation Copied ✓