In this paper we aim to disentangle the effects on in-group favoritism driven by beliefs from those stemming from group identity, with the final goal of testing the relative power of three potential explanations of this bias: The Beliefs Driven Explanation (BDE), the Group Identity Explanation (GIE) and the Belief-mediated Group Identity Explanation (BGE). The BDE suggests that in-group favoritism is only driven by the desire not to let others’ expectations down. The GIE claims that people have a preference, per se, for members of their group. According to the BGE, people also have a preference for members of their group, but this is mediated by their second-order beliefs. To this aim, we built an experimental design able to produce exogenous variations in both group membership and expectations, hence providing a genuine test for the rationale of in-group bias. The results of our experiment suggest that beliefs per se are not a significant explanation of in-group favoritism and hence do not provide support to the BDE. Our experimental evidence does not provide support also to the BGE. We conclude that our experiment suggests to single out the GIE as the most powerful explanation of social identity.

Is social identity belief independent? / Ciccarone, Giuseppe; DI BARTOLOMEO, Giovanni; Papa, Stefano. - (2018).

Is social identity belief independent?

Giuseppe Ciccarone
;
Giovanni Di Bartolomeo
;
Stefano Papa
2018

Abstract

In this paper we aim to disentangle the effects on in-group favoritism driven by beliefs from those stemming from group identity, with the final goal of testing the relative power of three potential explanations of this bias: The Beliefs Driven Explanation (BDE), the Group Identity Explanation (GIE) and the Belief-mediated Group Identity Explanation (BGE). The BDE suggests that in-group favoritism is only driven by the desire not to let others’ expectations down. The GIE claims that people have a preference, per se, for members of their group. According to the BGE, people also have a preference for members of their group, but this is mediated by their second-order beliefs. To this aim, we built an experimental design able to produce exogenous variations in both group membership and expectations, hence providing a genuine test for the rationale of in-group bias. The results of our experiment suggest that beliefs per se are not a significant explanation of in-group favoritism and hence do not provide support to the BDE. Our experimental evidence does not provide support also to the BGE. We conclude that our experiment suggests to single out the GIE as the most powerful explanation of social identity.
2018
social identity; beliefs; social norms
03 Monografia::03a Saggio, Trattato Scientifico
Is social identity belief independent? / Ciccarone, Giuseppe; DI BARTOLOMEO, Giovanni; Papa, Stefano. - (2018).
File allegati a questo prodotto
File Dimensione Formato  
Ciccarone_Is-social_2018.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: Versione editoriale (versione pubblicata con il layout dell'editore)
Licenza: Tutti i diritti riservati (All rights reserved)
Dimensione 434.51 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
434.51 kB Adobe PDF

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/1195265
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact