Towards an Understanding of the Endogenous Nature of Identity in Games

We test the assumption that preferences are unchanged throughout a strategic game in the absence of feedback. To do so, we study the relationship between the strategic nature of a game and playersidenti\u85cation in social groups. We present evidence that the strategic nature of the game a¤ects the strength of identity. We also show when the change in identity occurs and what causes this change. In our experiment, the subjects play one of two versions of the Prisoners Dilemma game where the attractiveness of the uncooperative action is manipulated. We refer to the version with a relatively attractive uncooperative action as the "Mean Game " and the other as the "Nice Game. " We place each subject into one of two groups. Throughout the experimental procedure we measure identity, as standard in the psychology literature, in order to assess the extent to which subjects identify with their group. First, we \u85nd evidence of an interaction between the strategic nature of the game and the action selected in the game as a¤ecting the identity of the subject. We \u85nd that in the Mean Game, there is little di¤erence in the change in identi\u85cation of those playing cooperatively against an ingroup member an