Reshuffling Students to Fight Discrimination and Foster Pro-Social Behavior: A Field Experiment

• Autores: Marina Bosque Mercader, Andrés Gago
• Localización: Cuadernos económicos de ICE, ISSN 0210-2633, Nº 99, 2020 (Ejemplar dedicado a: ECONOMÍA DEL COMPORTAMIENTO), págs. 121-150
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.32796/cice.2020.99.7011
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen
  • español

    La identidad de grupo es un factor importante que incide en los comportamientos discriminatorios así como en las actitudes pro-sociales. Las personas tienden a comportarse de manera más pro-social con otros integrantes de su grupo y discriminan a aquellos que no pertenecen a su comunidad. En este artículo, a través de un experimento de campo en un colegio en Barcelona, estudiamos si pertenecer a la misma clase genera este tipo de identidad de grupo. Además, exploramos si variar la composición de las clases es una estrategia efectiva para diseminar el comportamiento pro-social y luchar contra la discriminación en la escuela. De acuerdo con nuestros resultados, los estudiantes discriminan positivamente a aquellos con los que han compartido clase en detrimento de aquellos que nunca han pertenecido al grupo, son más generosos con los primeros, menos vengativos, y premian más sus actitudes pro-sociales. De manera interesante, tras variar la composición de las clases, observamos que mientras los nuevos compañeros empiezan a ser tratados como miembros del grupo, aquellos que pertenecieron a la misma clase y ahora pertenecen a otra no pierden su estatus de miembros de la comunidad.

  • English

    There is substantial evidence that group identity shapes discrimination and pro-social behavior. Subjects tend to be more pro-social towards in-group members and discriminate out-group members. In this paper, we run a field experiment in a school in Barcelona to study whether belonging to the same class induces in-group favoritism. Moreover, we explore whether reshuffling students between classes is a good strategy to expand pro-social behavior within the school and fight discrimination. According to our results, participants allocate more resources, are more generous, retaliate less and give higher rewards to students who have always belonged to their same class relative to those who have never been part of it. Moreover, after varying the composition of classes, we find that new students in class start being considered group members and treated as so, while those that are not any longer in the same class do not lose their in-group status.

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