The Impact of Social Ties on Group Interactions: Evidence from Minimal Groups and Randomly Assigned Real Groups
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 4,
no. 1, February 2012
(pp. 101-15)
Abstract
Economists are increasingly interested in how group membership affects individual behavior. The standard method assigns individuals to "minimal" groups, i.e. arbitrary labels, in a lab. But real group often involve social interactions leading to social ties between group members. Our experiments compare randomly assigned minimal groups to randomly assigned groups involving real social interactions. While adding social ties leads to qualitatively similar, although stronger, in-group favoritism in cooperation, altruistic norm enforcement patterns are qualitatively different between treatments. Our findings contribute to the micro-foundation of theories of group preferences, and caution against generalizations from "minimal" groups to groups with social context. (JEL C92, D64, D71, Z13)Citation
Goette, Lorenz, David Huffman, and Stephan Meier. 2012. "The Impact of Social Ties on Group Interactions: Evidence from Minimal Groups and Randomly Assigned Real Groups." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 4 (1): 101-15. DOI: 10.1257/mic.4.1.101Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C92 Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Group Behavior
- D64 Altruism
- D71 Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Social and Economic Stratification
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