Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP16453
Authors: Grard Roland; Michal Bauer; Jana Cahlikova; Julie Chytilova; Tom Elinsk
Abstract: This paper provides experimental evidence showing that members of a majority group systematically shift punishment on innocent members of an ethnic minority. We develop a new incentivized task, the Punishing the Scapegoat Game, to measure how injustice affecting a member of one’s own group shapes punishment of an unrelated bystander (“a scapegoat”). We manipulate the ethnic identity of the scapegoats and study interactions between the majority group and the Roma minority in Slovakia. We find that when no harm is done, there is no evidence of discrimination against the ethnic minority. In contrast, when a member of one’s own group is harmed, the punishment ”passed” on innocent individuals more than doubles when they are from the minority, as compared to when they are from the dominant group. These results illuminate how individualized tensions can be transformed into a group conflict, dragging minorities into conflicts in a way that is completely unrelated to their behavior.
Keywords: punishment; minority groups; intergroup conflict; discrimination; scapegoating; lab-in-field experiments
JEL Codes: C93; D74; D91; J15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Harm to majority group member (J15) | Punishment directed at innocent minority members (J15) |
| No harm (Y70) | No discrimination against minority (J15) |
| Harm to majority group member (J15) | Scapegoating behavior (C92) |
| Scapegoating behavior (C92) | Broader group conflicts (D74) |