CeDEx Brown Bag Seminar - Dominik Suri

Title: Social identity and rule compliance

Abstract: Social life is governed by rules. Thus, it is crucial to understand drivers and barriers to rule-following behavior. Using a between-subject design, we investigate the impact of one determinant of rule-following on rule compliance, namely the origin of the rule. In our very simple task, participants are asked to follow an arbitrary rule. The rule is devoid of moral content, following it leads to a monetary loss, while violating it has no negative consequence. Across participant groups, the rule is unconnected (control group) or connected to the identity of the originator, representing either an in-group (treatment group 1) or out-group member (treatment group 2). The results show generally high rule-compliance in all three groups, comparable to similar previous studies. Taking a closer look at two core parts of identity, namely ideology and psychological distance, reveals that the latter reduces rule compliance if the originator's psychological distance is far from the participant, independent of in- or out-group affiliations.

Authors: Dominik Suri, Simon Gächter, Sebastian Kube, Johannes Schultz