Suchergebnisse

The problem of collective identity can be delineated through a brief historical account of the evolution of societies. There are 4 stages of social evolution which trace the relation of ego & group identity: (1) the archaic stage with its kinship ties & mythical world images, (2) the stage of the city-state with centralization, the formation of self-identity, & the rise of community, making group identity possible, (3) the rise of a class society with an emphasis on the community of believers, & (4) the modern era with the demand for strong universalistic commitments & individualistic ego structures. According to Hegel, the last stage reflects the alienation of the subject from society & from nature. This separation of the 'I' from society signifies the modern problem of identity, which can only be solved if it is rendered incomprehensible. For Hegel it is the modern state which embodies rational identity, but there are 4 arguments against this thesis: (A) the bourgeois state is not 'real', (B) for Hegel, rational identity develops in a sovereign state, but the sovereignty of the modern state has become an anachronism-- society is global in nature operating within the worldwide network of communications, (C) it is questionable whether a society can formulate its identity when social integration gets substituted for systems integration, & (D) the historical development of the state in the 19th century reveals that the identity of a society no longer fits an organizational framework, be it a nation or a parastate party. Some aspects of a new identity which is possible in a complex society can only be grounded in a consciousness of universal & equal chance to participate in the kinds of communication processes by which identity formation becomes a continuous learning process. There must be counterarguments & revisions of values & norms; tradition must be appropriated critically. A. Karmen.

"Recent experimental results indicate that women do not like competitive environments as much as men do. Another literature is interested in the effect of social identity on economic behaviors. This paper investigates in the lab the impact of social identity on men and women's willingness to compete both individually and as part of a team. To this aim, participants from the Identity sessions had to go through group identity building activities in the lab while participants from the Benchmark sessions did not. The main result is that men are only willing to enter a team competition with a teammate of unknown ability if they share a common group identity with him or her. This change of behavior seems to be caused by high-performing men who are less reluctant to be matched with a possibly less able participant when he or she belongs to his group. On the other hand, group identity does not seem to induce women to take actions more in the interest of the group they belong to." (author's abstract)

Social identities prescribe behaviors for people. We identify the marginal behavioral effect of these norms on discount rates and risk aversion by measuring how laboratory subjects' choices change when an aspect of social identity is made salient. When we make ethnic identity salient to Asian-American subjects, they make more patient choices. When we make racial identity salient to black subjects, non-immigrant blacks (but not immigrant blacks) make more patient choices. Making gender identity salient has no effect on intertemporal or risk choices. (JEL D81, J15, J16, Z13)