9: Politics of Identity

Question 1

element’s of Shayo’s framework to think about social identity

Answer 1

based on the framework, conditional on an identity choice, an individual can increase utility by increasing the status of their identity group and/or reducing their perceived distance from the group

increasing status of identity group means either

1. increasing payoffs and the altruism towards the group that one identifies with
2. decreasing payoffs of reference groups and reducing their status
3. changing the reference group or the way comparisons are made

decreasing perceived distance means

1. displaying conformity to group norms/behaviours
2. changing the behaviour of other members of the group - punishing/ostracising deviators from the group norm

Question 2

results of the study Their Pain Gives Us Pleasure by Cikara et al.

Answer 2

participants were presented with scenarios of what happened to other people and asked how they feel

participants also assigned to 2 different groups - not real groups that exist and therefore have no substance in terms of identity

all in all, you feel better when a person is from the outgrip but when they from the in-group, you tend to feel worse

Schadenfreude - joy in the pain of others
Glückschmerz - pain you feel when the others are doing well

groups mean nothing but we still observe discrimination taking place between groups

Question 3

what increases/lowers inhibition against committing harm to others?

Answer 3

considering members as part of a group rather than individuals lowers inhibition

don’t see the humanity of the person you’re killing in war

defining individuals as oppressors by virtue of being part of an arbitrary group is the most effective way to abandon all moral values

Question 4

results of the paper on identity choice by Atkin et al.

Answer 4

measures how people can change identity and how we analysed that using food consumption (specific foods associated with religious and ethnic identities)

in this case, people respected the taboo much stronger when told there is a conflict in a neighbouring state (stricter about not eating beef if you are Muslim - want to stick to the norms of the group)

heightening of group identity changes how you respect group norms - so the more you debate about that specific identity, the more individuals follow those norms

when factoring in costs, once a price effect leads to a change in identity, it can violate all of the norms and taboos

price of goods can have the biggest impact as to how people change their behaviour in terms of identification

Question 5

how criteria used by different societies at different time periods to classify people in groups by skin colour evolved

Answer 5

groups are not so obvious - definition of groups changes all the time

originally, the word white was not used to describe people (during first 50 years of French slave holding colonies)

in 1685, free subjects were not defined by skin colour

starting at the end of the 17th century, authorities start collecting census data and there is a distinction between free subjects that are “white” or “free people of colour” - being categorised as white depends as much on skin colour as it does on status

until the mid 18th century, the distinction between “whites” and “free people of colour” gets stricter so the definition of who is considered “white” gets stricter as well - free people of colour are subjected to poll tax, segregation in church, etc.

other examples include the one drop rule in the US and its colonies, Brazilian understanding of race, etc.

Question 6

results of the paper Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines by Iyengar and Westwood (2015)

Answer 6

studies how much party affiliation and racial identity can change subject’s choices of applicants

those that were democrats are more likely to choose applicants that are also democrats even if a republican applicant has better qualifications, etc.

European-American individuals will choose other European-Americans slightly less than African Americans (45% vs 55%)

race does not matter so much in the decision compared with party affiliation from this analysis

then, studied trust/dictator games to assess discrimination based on partisanship

you tend to give more to co-partisans or independents than people of the opposing party - not much difference between independents and when you are not told partisanship of the other person

in the US, the strongest identity is partisanship