Why and How Identity Should Influence Utility

Philipp Wichardt

Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems from Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich

Abstract: This paper provides an argument for the advantage of a preference for identity-consistent behaviour from an evolutionary point of view. Within a stylised model of social interaction, we show that the development of cooperative social norms is greatly facilitated if the agents of the society possess a preference for identity consistent behaviour. As cooperative norms have a positive impact on aggregate outcomes, we conclude that such preferences are evolutionarily advantageous. Furthermore, we discuss how such a preference can be integrated in the modelling of utility in order to account for the distinctive cooperative trait in human behaviour and show how this squares with the evidence.

Keywords: cognitive dissonance; fairness; identity; reciprocity; social Norms; social preferences; utility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C70 C90 D01 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-soc and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/13359/1/193.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:trf:wpaper:193

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems from Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tamilla Benkelberg ().