Discrimination and Group Identities

Opportunities in life in Europe de facto hinge on group memberships that de jure should not matter for individual outcomes – prompting EC president Ursula von der Leyen to press for renewed efforts to answer the question: “Why do racism and discrimination endure in our societies?”Located at the Department of Microeconomics and Public Economics at Maastricht University and in collaboration with the University of Applied Police Sciences Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, I want to contribute to answering two research questions: i) Which types of group identities more vs. less likely induce discriminatory behavior? and ii) Which types of persons are more vs. less likely to adopt such group identities?In WP1 I plan to conduct a comprehensive meta-analysis of economic experiments studying discrimination.

It will focus on the strengths of different types of group identities and on individual heterogeneity in their adoption.

Doing so, this meta-study will provide key empirical insights at an unprecedented level of detail into the mechanics of discriminatory group identities and their interaction with individual levels of readiness to adopt them - a trait labeled 'groupiness'.In WP2 I will conduct an experimental study to dissect ‘groupiness’ by investigating a) if long-term exposure to environments of stronger vs. weaker group identities has an impact on individual levels of ‘groupiness’ and b) whether individuals who have a higher readiness to follow rules in general are also more likely to show ‘groupy’ behavior.The insights gained will allow for the development of substantially improved theoretical models of group identity based discriminatory behavior and will be also very informative for practitioners aiming at changing group identities for the better.

In particular, the results obtained will directly be exploited for informing and potentially improving the professional training of young women and men striving to become law enforcement officers.