Investment in identity in the field-Nudging refugees’ integration effort

Abstract

Social identity greatly affects behavior. However, less is known about an individual’s investment in identification, i.e., in belonging to a social group. Using a language-learning platform utilized by refugees to learn the host country’s language, we design a field experiment that allows us to make effort as an investment in a new group identity salient. The social identity in our treatment is a refugee’s identification with the host society. We modified a mailing to 5600 refugees who use an online language-learning platform to learn the host country’s language. These treatment emails make salient that improving the host country’s language ability increases the belonging to the host society. Our analysis reveals that the treatment has a significant positive effect on the effort exerted on the language-learning platform, leading to more completed exercises and more time spent learning the host country’s language. This suggests that refugees invest in becoming part of the host country’s society for its social identity component. Our findings can inform policy considerations on the use of nudges for other integration measures intended for refugees and immigrants in general.