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Saving face and group identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Tor Eriksson ,
Lei Mao  and
Marie Claire Villeval Open the ORCID record for Marie Claire Villeval [Opens in a new window]
Tor Eriksson*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark
Lei Mao*
Affiliation:
School of Insurance, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China
Marie Claire Villeval*
Affiliation:
Univ Lyon, CNRS, GATE UMR5824, 93, Chemin des Mouilles, 69130 Ecully, France IZA, Bonn, Germany Department of Public Finance, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Abstract

Are people willing to sacrifice resources to save one’s and others’ face? In a laboratory experiment, we study whether individuals forego resources to avoid the public exposure of the least performer in their group. We show that a majority of individuals are willing to pay to preserve not only their self- but also other group members’ image, even when group identity is minimal. When group identity is made more salient, individuals help regardless of whether the least performer is an in-group or an out-group. In contrast, people are less likely to sacrifice for individual strangers, showing a major role for group identity and reputation concerns within groups relative to an interpretation in terms of moral norms.

Keywords

Saving faceSocial imagePro-social behaviorGroup identityExperiment

JEL classification

M52: Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior Z13: Economic Sociology • Economic Anthropology • Language • Social and Economic Stratification
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 622 - 647
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-016-9502-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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