Conflicting identities and cooperation between groups: Experimental evidence from a mentoring program

Abstract

Social policy-making aims at integrating vulnerable minorities, yet leading scientific theories conflict on how easily diverse groups cooperate. We experimentally investigate cooperation in 14 centers of a mentoring program where participants have two possible natural identities—individuals raised under legal guardianship, suffering a negative stereotype (G; n=112) and regular users without such a social stigma (NG; n=82). Participants played a Prisoners’ Dilemma game with an anonymous partner from the same center (center-ingroup) and from another center (center-outgroup). For individuals without a history of prior within-center interaction, resembling the conditions of the minimal group paradigm, we find center-outgroup favoritism among Gs and center-ingroup favoritism among NGs. However, the longer G individuals have been in the center the more center-ingroup favoritism they display, while the opposite is true for NGs. Regardless of within-center history, both Gs and NGs cooperate less with the center-ingroup (vs. outgroup) as the probability that the center-ingroup is G increases. Thus, we observe patterns of minimal-outgroup and natural-outgroup favoritism among Gs which challenge traditional social identity theory. Our findings highlight the roles of system-justification and stereotypes in intergroup cooperation and have implications for the integration of vulnerable groups and the optimization of social policy programs.