Competing Social Identities and Intergroup Discrimination: Evidence from a Framed Field Experiment with High School Students in Vietnam

60 Pages Posted: 10 Mar 2021

See all articles by Tam Kiet Vuong

Tam Kiet Vuong

Queensland University of Technology

Ho Fai Chan

Queensland University of Technology

Benno Torgler

Queensland University of Technology; CREMA; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

Date Written: January 18, 2021

Abstract

We conducted a framed field experiment to explore a situation where individuals have potentially competing social identities to understand how group identification and socialization affect in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination. The Dictator Game and the Trust Game were conducted in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on two groups of high school students with different backgrounds, i.e., French bilingual and monolingual (Vietnamese) students. We find strong evidence for the presence of these two phenomena: our micro-analysis of within- and between-school effects show that bilingual students exhibit higher discriminatory behavior toward non-bilinguals within the same school than toward other bilinguals from a different school, implying that group identity is a key factor in the explanation of intergroup cooperation and competition.

Keywords: Socialization, In-group favouritism, Out-group discrimination, Cooperation, Trust, Trustworthiness, Fairness, Altruism

JEL Classification: C93, C70, D74

Suggested Citation

Vuong, Tam Kiet and Chan, Ho Fai and Torgler, Benno, Competing Social Identities and Intergroup Discrimination: Evidence from a Framed Field Experiment with High School Students in Vietnam (January 18, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3768232 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3768232

Tam Kiet Vuong

Queensland University of Technology ( email )

2 George Street
Brisbane, Queensland 4000
Australia

Ho Fai Chan (Contact Author)

Queensland University of Technology ( email )

2 George Street
Brisbane, Queensland 4000
Australia

Benno Torgler

Queensland University of Technology ( email )

GPO Box 2434
2 George Street
Brisbane, Queensland 4001
Australia

CREMA

Gellertstrasse 18
Basel
Zurich, CH 8006
Switzerland

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

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