16:50 - 18:30
PS10
Room:
Room: Club C
Panel Session 10
Sascha Riaz - Inequality and Xenophobia -- Micro-Level Evidence from the European Refugee Crisis
Mathias Kruse - The Power of Expectation: Why “We” Don’t Cooperate With “Them”
Ilona Lahdelma - Labor vs. culture: Can positive economic evaluations affect cultural opposition to immigration?
Korinna O. Lindemann - The Socialist Shadow: Immigrants and Regime Preference in an Experimental Online Game
Achim Prof Dr Goerres - Integration and Transnational Political Interest among Immigrant-Origin Voters
The Power of Expectation: Why “We” Don’t Cooperate With “Them”
PS10-2
Presented by: Mathias Kruse
Mathias Kruse
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University
People cooperate less with ethnic outgroup members than with ethnic ingroup members. They do so primarily because they expect that the outgroup will be less likely to reciprocate cooperative behavior. Such ingroup bias points to a potential challenge in the production and maintenance of public goods in increasingly multiethnic societies. Yet, though the importance of expectations in cooperation is well established, we know very little as to why people expect the outgroup to be less cooperative than the ingroup. In this article, I argue that the ethnic majority expects ethnic minorities and immigrants to be less cooperative because ethnicity is (perceived to be) related to other social factors such as socio-economic status and norm compliance that in themselves a) predict cooperating behavior and b) reduce ethnic bias once knowledge of such factors is available. Hence, the expectation that ethnic outgroup members cooperate less is driven by the correlates of ethnicity more than ethnicity itself. To test these arguments, I conduct a conjoint experiment in Denmark in which respondents are asked to observe and predict the behavior of different players in a large-N public goods game (data is being collected). The experiment is novel in assigning each respondent to different types and amounts of player attributes that makes it possible to isolate both the direct and mediating effects of different social factors perceived to correlate with ethnicity. Investigating whether expectations of cooperation is based on ethnicity or ethnic stereotypes is important for policies aimed at improving cooperation in diverse societies.