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Rationality and Society
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Social Identity and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas

Brent Simpson

University of South Carolina, USA; bts{at}sc.edu

This article presents a refined explanation of why minimal group identities affect cooperation in social dilemmas. The refined approach builds on key tenets of social identity theory to argue that identity affects cooperation by leadings actors to maximize ingroup outcomes and minimize ingroup inequalities. A key implication of the argument is that social identity is predicted to reduce actors' responses to the ‘greed component’ in social dilemmas (the incentive to ‘free-ride’ on others' cooperation), but that it will not affect actors' responses to the ‘fear component’ (the motivation to avoid being ‘suckered’). These predictions stand in contrast to those of two existing explanations of social identity and cooperation. The three arguments are tested against the results of two new experiments. Overall, the results support the refined approach.

Key Words: cooperation • prisoners' dilemma • social dilemmas • social identity

Rationality and Society, Vol. 18, No. 4, 443-470 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1043463106066381
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