Abstract
Social identity theory has become increasingly important for economists. I discuss the contribution of Van Bavel and Packer’s “The Power of Us” in light of what economists (especially experimental ones) can learn from their research.
Highlights
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
The starting point of the book is the central hypothesis of social identity theory, according to which group members of an ingroup will seek to find negative aspects of an outgroup, enhancing their selfimage
In minimal group paradigm experiments, people express a preference for ingroup members is because a certain social identity is made more salient than another, and this opens the road to the possibility of shifting group boundaries to form new identities
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Starting from Tajfel’s research and his investigation on the cognitive aspects of prejudice in the 1960s and 1970s, in the “Power of Us”, Van Bavel and Packer [3] recall the key definitions and concepts of social identity as the product of a person’s group membership(s) (“the collective self”) that determines her sense of who she is and shapes group and intergroup processes.
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