scholarly journals The Impact of Social Ties on Group Interactions: Evidence from Minimal Groups and Randomly Assigned Real Groups

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenz Goette ◽  
David Huffman ◽  
Stephan Meier
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Group Interactions ◽  
Norm Enforcement ◽  
Group Preferences ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Minimal Groups ◽  
The Impact

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 groups 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)

scholarly journals The language of cooperation: shared intentionality drives variation in helping as a function of group membership

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1863) ◽  
pp. 20171682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Susan McClung ◽  
Sarah Placì ◽  
Adrian Bangerter ◽  
Fabrice Clément ◽  
Redouan Bshary
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Optimal Foraging ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Theoretical Studies ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
Spontaneous Language ◽  
Experimental Game ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
Group Members

While we know that the degree to which humans are able to cooperate is unrivalled by other species, the variation humans actually display in their cooperative behaviour has yet to be fully explained. This may be because research based on experimental game-theoretical studies neglects fundamental aspects of human sociality and psychology, namely social interaction and language. Using a new optimal foraging game loosely modelled on the prisoner's dilemma, the egg hunt, we categorized players as either in-group or out-group to each other and studied their spontaneous language usage while they made interactive, potentially cooperative decisions. Both shared group membership and the possibility to talk led to increased cooperation and overall success in the hunt. Notably, analysis of players' conversations showed that in-group members engaged more in shared intentionality, the human ability to both mentally represent and then adopt another's goal, whereas out-group members discussed individual goals more. Females also helped more and displayed more shared intentionality in discussions than males. Crucially, we show that shared intentionality was the mechanism driving the increase in helping between in-group players over out-group players at a cost to themselves. By studying spontaneous language during social interactions and isolating shared intentionality as the mechanism underlying successful cooperation, the current results point to a probable psychological source of the variation in cooperation humans display.

Social categorization in interpersonal negotiation: How social structural factors shape negotiations

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 765-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphanie Demoulin ◽  
Cátia P. Teixeira
Keyword(s):  
Group Membership ◽  
Social Categorization ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Distributive Negotiation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Impact

Social categorization is a powerful determinant of social behavior. As group membership becomes salient, individuals come to behave as group members and, consequently, appraise interactions according to these salient group identities (Turner, 1987). The aim of the present article is to investigate the impact of social categorization on perceptions and appraisals of a distributive negotiation situation. An experiment is presented in which social categorization of the negotiation partner is manipulated. Results revealed that the social structural factors associated with the partner’s group (i.e. social status and group’s competition) influence fixed-pie perceptions as well as participants’ inferences about their counterpart’s target and resistance points. In addition, these effects are mediated by stereotypical evaluations of the counterpart in terms of warmth and competence, respectively.

scholarly journals Observing grooming promotes affiliation in Barbary macaques

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1893) ◽  
pp. 20181964 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliette M. Berthier ◽  
Stuart Semple
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Matched Control ◽  
Control Period ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Group Cohesion ◽  
Barbary Macaques ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Relaxing Effect

Observing friendly social interactions makes people feel good and, as a result, then act in an affiliative way towards others. Positive visual contagion of this kind is common in humans, but whether it occurs in non-human animals is unknown. We explored the impact on female Barbary macaques of observing grooming, a behaviour that physiological and behavioural studies indicate has a relaxing effect on the animals involved. We compared females' behaviour between two conditions: after observing conspecifics groom, and in a matched control period. We found that observing grooming was associated with reduced behavioural indicators of anxiety, suggesting that seeing others groom is, in itself, relaxing. Observing grooming was also associated with a shorter latency to becoming involved in a grooming bout (and higher likelihood both of initiating that bout and being the groomer rather than groomee), and with elevated rates of other affiliative behaviours. These results provide evidence for positive visual contagion; this phenomenon may contribute fundamentally to group cohesion not just in this species, but also in the many mammal and bird species where grooming occurs. Our study highlights the importance of exploring social behaviour beyond the level of the interacting individuals, within the broader social context where it occurs.

scholarly journals Pain relief provided by an outgroup member enhances analgesia

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1887) ◽  
pp. 20180501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grit Hein ◽  
Jan B. Engelmann ◽  
Philippe N. Tobler
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Pain Relief ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Pain Modulation ◽  
Pain Processing ◽  
Neural Learning ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pain Responses

Pain feels different in different social contexts, yet the mechanisms behind social pain modulation remain poorly understood. To elucidate the impact of social context on pain processing, we investigated how group membership, one of the most important social context factors, shapes pain relief behaviourally and neurally in humans undergoing functional neuroimaging. Participants repeatedly received pain relief from a member of their own group (ingroup treatment) or a member of a disliked outgroup (outgroup treatment). We observed a decrease in pain ratings and anterior insula (AI) pain responses after outgroup treatment, but not after ingroup treatment. Moreover, path analyses revealed that the outgroup treatment induced a stronger relief learning in the AI, which in turn altered pain processing, in particular if the participant entered the treatment with a negative impression toward the outgroup individual. The finding of enhanced analgesia after outgroup treatment is relevant for intergroup clinical settings. More generally, we found that group membership affects pain responses through neural learning and we thus elucidate one possible mechanism through which social context impacts pain processing.

scholarly journals Victim Sensitivity and Proposal Size Modulate the Ingroup Favoritism During Fairness Norm Enforcement

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhen Zhang ◽  
Hui Zhao ◽  
Ruixue Liu ◽  
Chunhui Qi
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
High Group ◽  
Norm Enforcement ◽  
Positive Treatment ◽  
Fairness Norms ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Ingroup Favoritism

People show a strong aversion to inequality and are willing to sacrifice their own interests to punish violations of fairness norms. Empirical research has found that group membership could influence the fairness judgment and norm enforcement of the individuals but has shown inconsistent findings and has not focused much on the potential moderators. Here, the two studies aimed to investigate whether victim sensitivity and proposal size moderate the impact of group membership on reactions to unfair proposals. In both studies, the participants with different victim sensitivity (low vs. high group) played the hypothetical (Study 1) and incentivized (Study 2) ultimatum game under the intragroup and intergroup condition and indicated their responses to the different proposals. Results showed that, regardless of the victim sensitivity, ingroup member is often given preferential and positive treatment. Low victim sensitive persons are more likely to accept unfair offers from the ingroup than the outgroup, while this effect was attenuated for those with high victim sensitivity, especially for highly ambiguous unfair offers (offer 6:4 in Study 1 and 8:2 in Study 2). Moreover, the ingroup favoritism score for ambiguous unfair offers was smaller for high compared with the victim sensitivity group. Taken together, the victim sensitivity, and proposal size could moderate the ingroup favoritism on responses to unfairness.

scholarly journals Redistribution and Group Participation: Experimental Evidence from Africa and the UK

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 717-735
Author(s):  
Marcel Fafchamps ◽  
Ruth Vargas Hill
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Group Participation ◽  
Group Members ◽  
University Town ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

Abstract We investigate whether the prospect of redistribution hinders the formation of efficiency-enhancing groups. We conduct an experiment in a Kenyan slum, Ugandan villages, and a UK university town. We test, in an anonymous setting with no feedback, whether subjects join a group that increases their endowment but exposes them to one of three redistributive actions: stealing, giving, or burning. We find that exposure to redistributive options among group members operates as a disincentive to join a group. This finding obtains under all three treatments—including when the pressure to redistribute is intrinsic. However the nature of the redistribution affects the magnitude of the impact. Giving has the least impact on the decision to join a group, while forced redistribution through stealing or burning acts as a much larger deterrent to group membership. These findings are common across all three subject pools, but African subjects are particularly reluctant to join a group in the burning treatment, indicating strong reluctance to expose themselves to destruction by others.

scholarly journals Endogenous oxytocin predicts helping and conversation as a function of group membership

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1882) ◽  
pp. 20180939 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Susan McClung ◽  
Zegni Triki ◽  
Fabrice Clément ◽  
Adrian Bangerter ◽  
Redouan Bshary
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Extreme Variation ◽  
Helping Behaviour ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Baseline Levels ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Behavioural Sciences

Humans cooperate with unrelated individuals to an extent that far outstrips any other species. We also display extreme variation in decisions about whether to cooperate or not, and the mechanisms driving this variation remain an open question across the behavioural sciences. One candidate mechanism underlying this variation in cooperation is the evolutionary ancient neurohormone oxytocin (OT). As current research focuses on artificial administration of OT in asocial tasks, little is known about how the hormone in its naturally occurring state actually impacts behaviour in social interactions. Using a new optimal foraging paradigm, the ‘egg hunt’, we assessed the association of endogenous OT with helping behaviour and conversation. We manipulated players' group membership relative to each other prior to an egg hunt, during which they had repeated opportunities to spontaneously help each other. Results show that endogenous baseline OT predicted helping and conversation type, but crucially as a function of group membership. Higher baseline OT predicted increased helping but only between in-group players, as well as decreased discussion about individuals’ goals between in-group players but conversely more of such discussion between out-group players. Subsequently, behaviour but not conversation during the hunt predicted change in OT, in that out-group members who did not help showed a decrease in OT from baseline levels. In sum, endogenous OT predicts helping behaviour and conversation, importantly as a function of group membership, and this effect occurs in parallel to uniquely human cognitive processes.

scholarly journals Group bias in cooperative norm enforcement

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1686) ◽  
pp. 20150073 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine McAuliffe ◽  
Yarrow Dunham
Keyword(s):  
Group Membership ◽  
Norm Violations ◽  
Norm Enforcement ◽  
Group Cooperation ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
Interaction Partners ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Cooperative Decision Making ◽  
Future Work

A hallmark of human social cognition is the tendency for both adults and children to favour members of their own groups. Critically, this in-group bias exerts a strong influence on cooperative decision-making: people (i) tend to share more with members of their in-group and (ii) differentially enforce fairness norms depending on the group membership of their interaction partners. But why do people show these group biases in cooperation? One possibility is that the enforcement of cooperative norm violations is an evolved mechanism supporting within-group cooperation ( Norms-Focused Hypothesis ). Alternatively, group bias in cooperation could be a by-product of more general affective preferences for in-group members ( Mere Preferences Hypothesis ). Here, we appraise evidence from studies of both adults and children with the goal of understanding whether one of these two accounts is better supported by existing data. While the pattern of evidence is complex, much of it is broadly consistent with the Mere Preferences Hypothesis and little is uniquely supportive of the Norms-Focused Hypothesis. We highlight possible reasons for this complexity and suggest ways that future work can continue to help us understand the important relationship between group bias and cooperation.

scholarly journals You can’t trust an angry group- asymmetric evaluations of angry and surprised rhetoric affect confidence in trending opinions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emory Richardson ◽  
Frank Keil
Keyword(s):  
Group Interactions ◽  
Opposing View ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Opposing Faction ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

Communication in groups allows social learners to influence one another and change their beliefs over time. Though some of the same heuristics that guide learners’ trust in individual informants can be applied to groups, variation in how individual beliefs are aggregated into a collective judgement can radically alter the accuracy of collective judgement. How do observers evaluate collective judgements? We present two experiments testing the impact of affective signals on observer trust. In each experiment, one faction “converts” group members from an opposing faction, or is converted by them. When the focal faction is surprised at the opposing view, observer trust in the focal faction’s belief rises or falls as consensus increases or decreases. When the focal faction is angry, observer trust falls when consensus decreases, but does not rise even when the “consensus” approaches unanimity. Affective signals in group interactions may help naive learners evaluate collective accuracy.

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