Is it a norm to favour your own group?

Journal article

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 behaviour. 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.

Authors: Harris, D; Herrmann, B; Kontoleon, A; Newton, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Springer
• Journal: Experimental Economics
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 491-521
• Publication date: 2014-08-27
• Acceptance date: 2014-08-05
• DOI: 10.1007/s10683-014-9417-9
• EISSN: 1573-6938
• ISSN: 1386-4157
• Language: English
• Keywords: in-group punishment; social norms; out-group punishment; in-group favouritism; group identity; third-party punishment