To What Extent Defining a Group Predicates on Defining Other Groups?

Chiu, Y. Stephen; Zhong, Weifeng

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1862504

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To What Extent Defining a Group Predicates on Defining Other Groups?

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences

11 Pages Posted: 11 Jun 2011 Last revised: 16 Apr 2018

See all articles by Y. Stephen Chiu

Y. Stephen Chiu

The University of Hong Kong - School of Economics and Finance

Weifeng Zhong

Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Date Written: March 11, 2011

Abstract

We present a framework of group cooperation and competition in which agents are concerned not only about their material payoffs but also about their psychological payoffs, derived from working with others per se. In such a framework, a group's psychological preferences serve to enhance the group's material payoffs. We show that a small group has strong incentives to engage in outward-looking identity strengthening, such as stereotyping or airing grievances against a specific, large outgroup, and a large group has strong incentives to engage in inward-looking identity strengthening, such as self-stereotyping, glorifying its own history, etc..

Keywords: Group identity, material payoffs, psychological payoffs, stereotyping, self-stereotyping

JEL Classification: D74, H00, O10

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Chiu, Yiu Wah Stephen and Zhong, Weifeng, To What Extent Defining a Group Predicates on Defining Other Groups? (March 11, 2011). Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1862504 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1862504