Norm Enforcement in Markets: Group Identity and the Volunteering of Feedback

2020 ◽  
Vol 130 (629) ◽  
pp. 1248-1261
Author(s):  
Gary E Bolton ◽  
Johannes Mans ◽  
Axel Ockenfels

Abstract The provision of trader feedback is critical to the functioning of many markets. We examine the influence of group identity on the volunteering and informativeness of feedback. In a market experiment conducted simultaneously in Germany and the United States, we manipulate the interaction of traders based on natural social and induced home market identities. Traders are more likely to provide feedback information on a trader with whom they share a common group identity, and the effect is more pronounced for social identity than for home market identity. Both kinds of group identity promote rewarding good performance and punishing bad performance.

Author(s):  
Lionel K. McPherson

Understanding black American social identity has suffered from association with the race idea. Being black American is not a racial designation. The tendency to reduce color-conscious social identity to racial classification is a mistake. Black American social identity gets its “blackness” from traceable African ancestry and is marked by the legacy of slavery. Yet being black American has become an elective identity: Americans with visible African ancestry no longer must count as black. But this hardly threatens black social identity and black solidarity, which continue to represent resistance to dishonor and mistreatment attaching to blackness in the United States.


Author(s):  
Robbee Wedow ◽  
Daniel A. Briley ◽  
Susan E. Short ◽  
Jason Boardman

This chapter uses twin pairs from the Midlife in the United States study to investigate the genetic and environmental influences on perceived weight status for midlife adults. The inquiry builds on previous work investigating the same phenomenon in adolescents, and it shows that perceived weight status is not only heritable, but also heritable beyond objective weight. Subjective assessment of physical weight is independent of one’s physical weight and described as “weight identity.” Importantly, significant differences are shown in the heritability of weight identity among men and women. The chapter ends by discussing the potential relevance of these findings for broader social identity research.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Landon Schnabel

This study uses measures of cognitive and expressive aspects of gender as a social identity from the General Social Survey to examine whether and how they relate to religiosity. I find that religiosity is clearly gendered, but in different ways for women and men. Consistent with the feminine-typing of religion in the Christian-majority context of the United States, gender expression is linked with more religiousness among women but not men. Consistent with religion being a sometimes patriarchal institution, those with more pride in being men are more religious. I conclude that religiosity is gendered, that degendering and secularization processes could go hand-in-hand, and that future research on gender differences in religiosity should further examine variation among women and among men.


Author(s):  
Cameron Ballard-Rosa ◽  
Amalie Jensen ◽  
Kenneth Scheve

Abstract Why does the contemporary backlash against globalization in the United States have such a substantial authoritarian character? We argue that sustained economic decline has a negative effect on the social identity of historically dominant groups. These losses lead individuals to be more likely to want to enforce social norm conformity—that is, adopt more authoritarian values—as a way to preserve social status and this effect is greater the larger the size of other groups in the population. Central to our account is the expectation of an interactive effect of local economic and demographic conditions in forging value responses to economic decline. The article evaluates this argument using an original 2017 representative survey in the United States. We find that individuals living in relatively diverse regions facing more intense competition from Chinese imports have more authoritarian values. We further find that the greater effect of globalization-induced labor market decline in more diverse areas is also evident for vote choice in the 2016 Presidential election.


1993 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Herrigel

The aim of this research note is to begin to develop the idea that trade unions are historically constructed as much through considerations of social identity as they are through calculations of economic self-interest, market power, or functional adaptation in the face of changes in the division of labor. By social identity, I mean the desire for group distinction, dignity, and place within historically specific discourses (or frames of understanding) about the character, structure, and boundaries of the polity and the economy. Institutions such as trade unions, in other words, are constituted through and by particular understandings of the structure of the social and political worlds of which they are part. In making this argument, it should be immediately said that I in no way intend to claim that trade unions are only to be understood through the lens of identity or that they do not engage in strategic calculation either in labor markets or in the broader political economy. The point is that action along the latter lines presupposes some kind of commitment on, and even resolution of, issues concerning the former. The discussion below focuses on the emergence of trade union movements in the United States and Germany during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It Attempts first to develope the two cases as constituting a paradox and then, second, explains the paradox with an argument about identity.


2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 960-974 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Wilcox-Archuleta

In-group identity is particularly important in understanding political behavior among minority populations living in the United States. Despite its importance, we know relativity little about what explains variation in perceptions of group identity among U.S.-based minority groups. I develop a theoretical framework drawing extensively for social identity theory to explain development of in-group identities among Latinos in the United States. I suggest the availability of neighborhood-level ethnic stimuli increases the likelihood that Latinos will come to see themselves a part of pan-ethnic group rather than a unique individual. I use the 2008 Collaborative Multi-Racial Political Survey (CMPS), a nationally representative public opinion poll of registered voters with oversamples of Latino respondents. I find that the availability of ethnic stimuli positively associates with stronger perceptions of group identity among Latinos. Latinos who live in contexts rich with ethnic stimuli and cues are more likely to adopt in-group identities than those who live in environments lacking ethnically salient resources.


2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 444-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth N Simas

While it is widely accepted that in the United States, political party labels serve as brand names which cue voters about the beliefs and ideologies of members, I explore the possibility that the signals sent by these labels are contingent upon the party membership of the individual voter. More specifically, I draw on social identity theory and hypothesize that individuals will be more likely to perceive heterogeneity among members of their own party. I find support for this hypothesis in perceptions of both the overall ideologies and voting records of US senators. Additionally, I compare respondent perceptions back to actual voting records and find that inpartisans are (1) only more likely to be correct when senators do in fact vote differently and (2) significantly less likely to be correct when senators vote the same way. These results suggest that the partisan differences uncovered are due to psychological bias and not just informational asymmetries and that biases stemming from group membership may lead to distorted opinions of senators and the representation they provide.


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