Year: 2015
Type: preprint
Abstract: Group formation and in-group bias - preferential treatment for insiders - are widely observed social phenomena. This paper demonstrates how they arise naturally when people incur a psychological cost as the result of defecting when facing cooperators, when this cost is increasing and concave in the number of such defections. If some group members are asocial, i.e., insusceptible to that cost, then, under incomplete information, free-riding and cooperation can coexist within groups. Signaling of one's type can enable groups to screen out free-riders, but signalling is costly, and its availability may decrease the welfare of all the individuals in society.
Author: Moti Michaeli
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2278655599