Cooperation, Identity, and Social Enforcement
In this line of work, I examine of individual behavior is shaped by social processes. Most of my work in this area has focused
on the role of social identity fragmentation across identities can shape intra- and inter-group cooperation. I also look at the
effectiveness of incentives and social mechanisms like norms and mandates in effecting behavior change.
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Promoting Cooperation in an Unequal World: Experimental Evidence on the Role of Transparency and Punishment
Chen, J., D'Attoma, J., Fonseca, M.A., and Malezieux, A. | Journal of Business Ethics
Across two studies, we examine the role of transparency and peer punishment in promoting cooperation and addressing economic
inequality in public good contributions. With global inequality rising and the wealthiest few amassing a greater share of
resources, its impact on social cohesion and business environments is increasingly significant. Financial secrecy further
compounds these issues by allowing for income and wealth concealment at both societal and organizational levels. Our
experimental findings reveal that transparency paired with peer punishment significantly boosts cooperation, particularly among
advantaged individuals. In contrast, peer punishment alone proves insufficient to mitigate the adverse effects of inequality
without the support of transparency. These results underscore the need for ethical governance structures that incorporate
transparency, fairness, and accountability -- principles essential for organizations committed to fostering trust and social
responsibility in unequal settings.
The presence of laws and mandates is associated with increased social norm enforcement
Mulder, L.B., Kurz, T., Prosser, A.M.B., and Fonseca, M.A. | Journal of Economic Psychology
Policy makers often implement laws or mandates to attempt to change people’s behavior. Such policies act not only as
deterrents, but also as societal signposts for what is considered morally right and wrong within a society. In this paper we
argue that the presence of laws and mandates may be associated with citizens’ inclination to engage in social norm enforcement
within their own network. We studied this using four different datasets in different settings (text-and-drive laws, influenza
vaccination mandates, speed limit laws, and COVID-19 mask mandates), in three different countries (total N = 3,156). In all
datasets, we found associations between mandates or laws and the inclination to socially confront norm violators. This is in
line with our theorizing that mandates and laws may help to increase citizens’ inclination to engage in social norm enforcement,
and to foster interpersonal policing of behavior, inviting future research to establish more direct causal conclusions in this
regard.
Do In-Group Biases Lead to Overconfidence in Performance? Experimental Evidence
Flores, L.Q., and Fonseca, M.A. | Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics
Is the phenomenon of people overestimating their skill relative to their peers (overplacement) exacerbated by group
affiliation? Social identity theory predicts people evaluate in-group members more positively than out-group members, and we
hypothesized that this differential treatment may result in greater overplacement when interacting with an out-group member.
We tested this hypothesis with 301 US voters affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic party in the run-up to the
2020 Presidential election, a time when political identities were salient and highly polarized. We found there is a higher
tendency for overplacement when faced with an out-group opponent than with an in-group opponent. Decomposition analysis
suggests this difference is due to underestimating the opponent, as opposed to overestimating one's own performance to a
higher degree. Moreover, any tendency to incur in overplacement is mitigated when faced with an opponent with the same
political identity relative to one with a neutral one. Group affiliation biases initial priors, but not how they are updated.
When a Nudge Is (Not) Enough: Experiments on Social Information and Incentives
Chen, J., Fonseca, M. A., and Grimshaw, S. B. | European Economic Review
Financial incentives and information nudges are two of the most widely used behaviour change interventions.
However, we do not yet fully understand how incentives and social information interact. We report two experiments examining
how incentives and social information interact to induce behavior change. In the first experiment, the behavior of interest
is punctuality in the field; in the second, we examine cooperation in a large-N prisoners' dilemma in the lab. In both
experiments participants valued good behavior and believed others also valued it, yet only a minority behaved well.
We find that incentives work in both environments, while information nudges were only effective in the prisoners' dilemma.
Incentives complement information nudges only in the prisoners' dilemma. Our experimental design also allows us to distinguish
between intrinsically motivated and unmotivated subjects: the former respond to treatment manipulations very differently to
the latter, both behaviourally and in their beliefs about others' behavior.
Religious Fragmentation, Social Identity and Other-Regarding Preferences
Chakravarty, S., Fonseca, M. A., Ghosh, S., Kumar, P., and Marjit, S. | Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics
We examine the impact of religious identity and village-level religious fragmentation on other-regarding preferences.
We report on a series of two-player binary Dictator experiments conducted on a sample of 516 Hindu and Muslim participants in
rural West Bengal, India. Our treatments are the identity of the two players and the degree of religious fragmentation in the
village where subjects reside. Both Muslims' and Hindus' aversion to advantageous inequality declines as the probability of
facing an out-group member increases. We find no evidence of aversion to disadvantageous inequality on either religious sample.
Both Muslim and Hindu participants display aversion to advantageous inequality in both fragmented villages and homogeneous
villages. The effect of village fragmentation on aversion to disadvantageous inequality differs across religious groups.
Discrimination via Exclusion: An Experiment on Group Identity and Club Goods
Chakravarty, S., Fonseca, M. A. | Journal of Public Economic Theory
We study using laboratory experiments the impact on cooperation of allowing individuals to invest in group-specific,
excludable public goods. We find that allowing different social groups to voluntarily contribute to such goods increases
total contributions. However, a significant proportion of that contribution goes toward the group-specific club good
rather than the public good, even when the latter has higher financial returns to cooperation. We find significant evidence
of in-group biases, which are manifested by positive in-group reciprocity. That is, club goods allow subjects to display their
preferences for interaction with their in-group members, as well as positive in-group reciprocity.
Religious Fragmentation, Social Identity and Cooperation: Evidence from an Artefactual Field Experiment in India
Chakravarty, S., Fonseca, M. A., Ghosh, S., and Marjit, S. | European Economic Review
We study the role of village-level religious fragmentation on intra- and inter-group cooperation in India.
We report on data on two-player prisoners' dilemma and stag hunt experiments played by 516 Hindu and Muslim
participants in rural India. Our treatments are the identity of the two players and the degree of village-level
religious heterogeneity. In religiously heterogeneous villages, cooperation rates in the prisoners' dilemma,
and to a lesser extent the stag hunt game, are higher when subjects of either religion play with a fellow
in-group member than when they play with an out-group member or with someone whose identity is unknown.
Interestingly, cooperation rates among people of the same religion are significantly lower in homogeneous
villages than in fragmented villages in both games.
Religious Fragmentation, Social Identity and Conflict: Evidence from an Artefactual Field Experiment in India
Chakravarty, S., Fonseca, M. A., Ghosh, S., and Marjit, S. | PLOS: One
We examine the impact of religious identity and village-level religious fragmentation on behavior in Tullock contests.
We report on a series of two-player Tullock contest experiments conducted on a sample of 516 Hindu and Muslim participants
in rural West Bengal, India. Our treatments are the identity of the two players and the degree of religious fragmentation in
the village where subjects reside. Our main finding is that the effect of social identity is small and inconsistent across
the two religious groups in our study. While we find small but statistically significant results in line with our hypotheses
in the Hindu sample, we find no statistically significant effects in the Muslim sample. This is in contrast to evidence from
Chakravarty et al. (2016), who report significant differences in cooperation levels in prisoners' dilemma and stag hunt
games, both in terms of village composition and identity. We attribute this to the fact that social identity may have a more
powerful effect on cooperation than on conflict.
The Effect of Social Fragmentation on Public Good Provision: An Experimental Study
Chakravarty, S. and Fonseca, M. A. | Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics
We study the role of social identity in determining the impact of social fragmentation on public good provision using
laboratory experiments. We find that as long as there is some degree of social fragmentation, increasing it leads to lower
public good provision by majority group members. This is mainly because the share of those in the majority group who
contribute fully to the public good diminishes with social fragmentation, while the share of free-riders is unchanged.
This suggests social identity preferences drive our result, as opposed to self-interest. Importantly, we find no difference
in contribution between homogeneous and maximally-fragmented treatments, reinforcing our finding that majority groups
contribute most in the presence of some diversity.
A fine is a more effective financial deterrent when framed retributively and extracted publicly
Kurz, T., Thomas, W. E., and Fonseca, M. A. | Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics
Introducing monetary fines to decrease an undesired behavior can sometimes have the counterintuitive effect of increasing
the prevalence of the behavior being targeted. Such findings raise important social psychological questions in relation to
both the way in which financial penalties are framed and the social contexts in which they are administered. In a field
experiment (Study 1), we informed participants who had signed up for an experiment that they would be fined if they arrived
late. This fine was presented as either compensatory or retributive in nature and as being administered either privately or
publicly. We then observed participants' subsequent arrival time. In accordance with our hypotheses, participants' punctuality
was only improved (relative to a no-fine control) in response to retributive rather than compensatory fines and when told that
fines would be administered publicly rather than privately. In Study 2 we used a scenario method to demonstrate that the
greater efficacy of retributively framed fines can be attributed to their presence being less likely to undermine the
perceived immorality of transgression than is the case for compensatory fines. We propose a material promotion-moral
prevention (MPMP) theory to account for our findings and consider its practical implications for the use of financial
disincentives to encourage cooperative behavior through public policy in domains such as climate change.