Description: Making Up People : The Effect of Identity on Preferences and Performance in a Modernizing Society

Cover Image

QR Code

Making Up People : The Effect of Identity on Preferences and Performance in a Modernizing Society

It is typically assumed that being hard-working or clever is a trait of the person, in the sense that it is always there, in a fixed manner. However, in an experiment with almost 600 boys in India, cues to one's place in the traditional caste...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Hoff, Karla, Pandey, Priyanka
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2013
Subjects:	ACHIEVEMENT AMBITION ANALOGY ANTHROPOLOGY APTITUDE TESTS ARGUMENTS ASIAN-AMERICAN ASIAN-AMERICANS ATROCITIES ATTENTION BELIEF SYSTEMS BELIEFS BLACK BOUNDARIES BOUNDARY BRAIN CASTE SYSTEM CASTES CHILDHOOD COGNITION COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY COMPETITORS CONFORMITY CONSCIOUSNESS CREATION DATA COLLECTION DISCRIMINATION DISCUSSION DISCUSSIONS DOMAINS DOMINANT GROUP DRAWING EARLY CHILDHOOD ECONOMIC DISCRIMINATION ECONOMIC INQUIRY EMOTIONS EQUALITY ESSAY ETIQUETTE FEELINGS GENDER GENDER DIFFERENCES GROUP MEMBERSHIP HUMAN CAPITAL IDEA IDEAS IDENTITIES IDENTITY IMMIGRANTS INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS INDIVIDUALITY INHIBITION INTELLIGENCE LEARNING LIFE CHANCES LITERATURE LOVE MOBILITY NORMS PARENTS PERSONALITY PLAYS POPULAR CULTURE POWER PREJUDICE PRIMING PRODUCTIVITY PSYCHOLOGY PUBLIC SERVICES RACE RECALL RITUALS SCRIPT SEGREGATION SELF-CONCEPT SELF-CONFIDENCE SOCIAL CATEGORIES SOCIAL CATEGORY SOCIAL CHANGE SOCIAL CLASS SOCIAL GROUP SOCIAL IDENTITIES SOCIAL IDENTITY SOCIAL ORDER SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY SOCIAL SCIENCES SOCIETIES SOCIOLOGY SYMBOLS TELEVISION TRAITS VIOLENCE WORKING MEMORY
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/10/16816808/making-up-people-effect-identity-preferences-performance-modernizing-society http://hdl.handle.net/10986/12068

Description
Summary:	It is typically assumed that being hard-working or clever is a trait of the person, in the sense that it is always there, in a fixed manner. However, in an experiment with almost 600 boys in India, cues to one's place in the traditional caste order turn out to influence the expression of these traits. The experiment assigned students to different treatments with respect to the salience of caste and had them solve mazes under incentives. It turned out that making caste salient can reduce output by about 25 percent, which is equivalent to twice the effect on output of being one year younger. The channels through which this occurs differ by caste status. For the upper castes, the decline in performance under piece rates can only be explained by a shift in preferences regarding the provision of effort. When the ascriptive caste order is cued, upper-caste individuals may think, "I don't need to excel." In contrast, for the lower castes, which were traditionally "untouchables," publicly revealing caste identity impairs the ability to learn and may lead individuals to think, "I can't (or don't dare to) excel." This paper provides a measure of the impact that ascriptive, hierarchized identities can have on preferences and performance after a society -- in its public pronouncements and legislation -- has adopted norms of equality in a formal sense. The findings are important because they suggest that when contexts cue identities founded on the superseded rules of a hierarchical institution, the effects on human capital formation and development can be first-order. Contexts that make traditional identities salient are an underemphasized source of impediments to institutional change.