PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Economic games in field settings have been subject to criticism concerning their ecological validity. We use social identity theory and the intergroup contact hypothesis as a framework to illustrate how economic games can be applied to field settings with higher ecological validity. A quasi-experiment in two rural Cameroonian villages studied participants’ allocation of rice to co-inhabitants of their village. The villages are characterized by different degrees of contact between the ethnic groups and the sexes. Our results indicate that women who are segregated from each other disadvantage other women more than men, or women who experience higher amounts of contact. These findings are interesting from a theoretical and methodological perspective since we utilized a non-monetary stake in naturalistic intergroup settings.