1

Making Up PeoplemdashThe Effect of Identity on Performance in a Modernizing

Society

Karla Hoff and Priyanka Pandey

The World Bank

Forthcoming in the Journal of Development Economics

Abstractmdash 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 288 high-caste

and 294 low-caste students in India cues to onersquos place in the caste system turned out to starkly

influence the expression of these traits The experiment allows us to discriminate between two

classes of models that give different answers to the question of how someonersquos identity affects

his behavior Models of the fixed self assume that identity is a set of preferences Models of the

frame-dependent self assume that identity entails a set of mental models that are situationally

evoked and that mediate information processing Our findings suggest that the effect of identity

on intellectual performance depends sensitively on the social setting This perspective opens up

new policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development

Key words Randomized experiment Culture Identity Mental model Frame India Caste Stereotype threat

Corresponding author Hoff (khoffworldbankorg) 1818 H StWashington DC 20433 USA

Acknowledgements Over the course of many years we have benefitted from very helpful comments from many

people We would particularly like to thank Rachel Croson Allison Demeritt Anjini Kochar Leigh Linden

Tauhidur Rahman Vijayendra Rao Joe Stiglitz and Ann Swidler We also thank the referees We owe a special

debt to Anaka Narayanan Ram Pratap and Mayuresh Kshetramade for assistance with data collection and to

Shweta Arya Sonal Vats and Sam Zhongxia Zhang for research assistance This work was made possible by grants

from the World Bank-Netherlands Partnership Program the World Bank Research Support Budget and the

MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Inequality and Economic Performance

2

Making Up PeoplemdashThe Effect of Identity on Performance in a Modernizing

Society

1 Introduction

A number of models in economics give different answers to the question of how someonersquos

identitymdashan individualrsquos sense of the social categories to which he belongsmdashmight affect his

behavior We present an experiment that allows us to discriminate between some of these

models We show that situational cues to identity can alter intellectual performance Our

findings suggest that identity can have a first-order effect on human capital formation and

development

A central goal in many disciplines is to understand how identity affects behavior

Historians have documented that societies all over the world have invented social identities and

used symbols etiquette rituals dress codes and segregation to impress on people the notion that

certain individuals constituted significantly different categories and were subject to different

constraints For example in Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race Jennifer Ritterhouse (2006 p 4) describes how the unwritten rules that governed

interactions across race lines were used ldquonot only as a form of social control but also as a script

for the performative creation ofhelliplsquoracersquo itselfrdquo The Victorian clothing system with its frock

coats for men and tight-laced corsets for women ldquoproduced the existence of [certain] categories

of behaviour and kept them habitually in being by moulding bodily configuration and

movementrdquo The role of men was to be active and strong (their clothes allowed them movement

and emphasized broad chests and shoulders) the role of women was to be inactive and

submissive (their clothes inhibited movement and were constricting) (Connerton 1989 pp 34)

Our title alludes to and amplifies the title of an essay ldquoMaking Up Peoplerdquo in which the

philosopher Ian Hacking (1986) argues that the creation of new slots in which to fit and

3

categorize people eg the perverted the suicidal and the heterosexual or homosexual person

moulds individualsrsquo sense of themselves and produces behavior that would not occur in the

absence of these labels

Our concern in this paper is to measure how labels affect learning and intellectual

performance A large body of work supports the view that identity matters for human capital

achievement Social norms and sometimes unknowingly schools and teachers can encourage or

discourage students from given social backgrounds Akerlof and Kranton (2002) present

evidence that whether students invest in schooling depends in part on their cultural identity

wherein payoffs differ among ldquojocksrdquo ldquonerdsrdquo and ldquoburnoutsrdquo Anthropological studies

document that school routines and curricula can convey to black students that there is something

wrong with them and their background (Ogbu 1999) In schools in which students are from

one background and teachers are from a different background the tension between students and

teachers Ogbu suggests may give rise to an oppositional culture among students Studies of

adolescents find some evidence of racial differences in the relationship between social status

among peers and academic achievement blacks for example may face a tradeoff between

acceptance and academic achievement that whites do not face Not wanting to be rejected by

their peer group for ldquoacting whiterdquo they may put less effort into their schoolwork (see Fryer

2011 for a review) Ferguson (2003) presents evidence that teachersrsquo perceptions expectations

and behavior differ across students of different social groups and that the interaction between the

expectations of teachers and those of students contributes to the black-white test score gap On

the brighter side all these findings suggest that schools have room to reduce the disparity in

educational outcomes by ethnicity and race by addressing at least two sources for this

differencemdashteachers and students Minority groups such as African-American students are

4

more likely to report discrimination by teachers In a sample of ethnically diverse US schools a

large percentage of students reported being bullied by peers based on their ethnicity (Bellmore

and Tomonaga 2009) Students who reported ethnicity-based discrimination were more likely to

experience depressive symptoms

The sociologists Ann Swidler (1986 2001 especially p 161) and Paul DiMaggio (1997)

argue that culture as a matter of self-conscious orientation or identity is not a set of values or

preferences but instead is a fragmented set of mental models understandings worldviews and

guides to action and these elements may not be consistent Culture affects action when it is

given force by contexts that organize cultural meanings and bring them to bear on action

Culture shapes behavior through cognitive frames (mental models) that are situationally evoked

and that determine how an individual construes a situation and which actions seem possible and

desirable in that situation given a personrsquos values ldquoIf one asked a slum youth why he did not

take steps to pursue a middle-class path to success hellipthe answer might well be not lsquoI donrsquot want

that lifersquo but instead lsquoWho mersquordquo (Swidler 1986 p 275)

This perspective suggests that the effect of identity on performance may depend on which

of a set of possible mental models is evoked in a given situation To test the hypothesis we draw

on our experiment in rural India that manipulates the classroom setting in which high-caste and

low-caste students are asked to learn and perform a new skill under incentives (Hoff and Pandey

2006) A feature of the caste system that makes it well-suited to identifying the effect of identity

is that an individualrsquos caste is determined by the accident of birth Although caste boundaries

and caste rankings change over long periods the status in north India of the specific high castes

(primarily Thakur and Brahmin) and the specific low caste (Chamar) from which we draw our

participants goes back millennia (Gupta 2000)

5

A second reason that caste is well-suited for the study of the effect of identity on

performance is that the meaning of the caste categories is not in doubt Two central

characteristics of the caste system are hierarchy and repulsion (or difference) between castes

(Gupta 2000) Hierarchy reflects beliefs in essential differences between the castes

For centuries it was believed that a manrsquos social capacities were known from the caste or

the lineage into which he was born and that no further test was necessary to determine

what these capacities were (Beacuteteille p 99)

Repulsion is expressed in endogamy and restrictions on contact between castes in particular

between those distant in rank A body of work in anthropology supports the view that vertical

mobility of the individual within the caste hierarchy was nearly impossible for someone who

remained in or near his village where his caste identity would be known (eg Gupta 2000 and

Srinivas 2009) A low-caste boy could not move up and a high-caste boy could not move

down1 At the bottom of the traditional caste hierarchy are the castes whose members were

marked as polluted They were called ldquountouchablesrdquo and are today called Dalits

Untouchability is the imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in the

certain low castes Dalits were not allowed to own land or use public wells were made to use

separate crockery in food stalls and were not allowed to sit inside a schoolhouse but instead

forced to remain outside

Untouchability is illegal under the Constitution of India and attitudes in Uttar Pradesh

towards Dalits are radically different today from what they were in the recent past (Kapur et al

2010) Evidence of a new social order is visible to every schoolchild in the stipends publicly

distributed to Dalits to encourage school enrollment and in the broad participation of Dalits in

1 Through a political process social mobility was possible on the part of the community but not by individuals (see

Rao and Ban 2007 for a measure of the process of changes in caste groups) For an exception in which individuals

were able to change their status for purposes of British law in India see Cassan (2011)

6

the political process Yet children are also likely to encounter the traditional order of caste

segregation and untouchability in their own experiences through the fables they learn and in

the continued insults and atrocities against upwardly mobile Dalits2 Two surveys give some

indication of how untouchability plays out in schools in humiliation and segregation

One common example of social prejudice in the classroom is the disparaging attitude of

upper caste teachers towards Dalit children This can take various forms such as telling

Dalit children that they are lsquostupidrsquo making them feel inferior using them for menial

chores and giving them liberal physical punishment (PROBE 1999 p 51)

In one out of four primary schools in rural India Dalit children are forced by their

teachers or by convention to sit apart from non-Dalits As many as 40 percent of schools

practice untouchability while serving mid-day meals making Dalit children sit in a

separate row while eating (Shah et al 2006 p168 based on a 2001-02 national survey)

The two social orders coexist in uneasy tensionmdashone in which ldquowe are all equal nowrdquo as some

villagers remarked to us and another in which upward mobility by low-caste individuals is not

liked and could be dangerous

Our experiment assesses the effect on childrenrsquos intellectual performance of making caste

identity public and of segregating children by caste Participants in our experiment were junior

high school boys from the top three castes and from the lowest castes3 In groups of six the

participants were asked to solve mazes under incentives and were randomly assigned to one of

three conditions

(1) In the control condition caste identity which is not discernible from natural physical

2Two examples are illustrative (i) In July 1998 in the state of Uttar Pradesh a High Court judge had his chambers

ldquopurified with Gang jarsquo (water from the River Ganges) because it had earlier been occupied by a Dalit judgerdquo Times

of India (Bombay) July 23 1998 (ii) Increases in wealth among the low-caste community of Pallars from

remittances from the Persian Gulf created tensions that led the entire Dalit population of the village to be driven out

by the marginally higher caste Thevas who set fire to their homes and fields (Human Rights Watch 1999 p 85) a

similar episode occurred elsewhere in 2012 (ldquoWhen development triggers caste violencerdquo The Hindu May 8 2013)

A recent Indian TV show provided one of the first public settings where viewers heard low-caste individuals speak

first-hand about their harsh and horrifying experiences of growing up as untouchables (wwwsatyamevjayatein

episode 10)

3High-caste boys were drawn from Thakurs (62) Brahmins (32) Vaishayas (4) and others (2) Low-caste

boys were drawn only from Chamars In Hardoi district Chamar is considered the lowest caste The set of high

castes and the Chamar caste each makes up somewhat less than 20 of the population of the district

3

categorize people eg the perverted the suicidal and the heterosexual or homosexual person

moulds individualsrsquo sense of themselves and produces behavior that would not occur in the

absence of these labels

Our concern in this paper is to measure how labels affect learning and intellectual

performance A large body of work supports the view that identity matters for human capital

achievement Social norms and sometimes unknowingly schools and teachers can encourage or

discourage students from given social backgrounds Akerlof and Kranton (2002) present

evidence that whether students invest in schooling depends in part on their cultural identity

wherein payoffs differ among ldquojocksrdquo ldquonerdsrdquo and ldquoburnoutsrdquo Anthropological studies

document that school routines and curricula can convey to black students that there is something

wrong with them and their background (Ogbu 1999) In schools in which students are from

one background and teachers are from a different background the tension between students and

teachers Ogbu suggests may give rise to an oppositional culture among students Studies of

adolescents find some evidence of racial differences in the relationship between social status

among peers and academic achievement blacks for example may face a tradeoff between

acceptance and academic achievement that whites do not face Not wanting to be rejected by

their peer group for ldquoacting whiterdquo they may put less effort into their schoolwork (see Fryer

2011 for a review) Ferguson (2003) presents evidence that teachersrsquo perceptions expectations

and behavior differ across students of different social groups and that the interaction between the

expectations of teachers and those of students contributes to the black-white test score gap On

the brighter side all these findings suggest that schools have room to reduce the disparity in

educational outcomes by ethnicity and race by addressing at least two sources for this

differencemdashteachers and students Minority groups such as African-American students are

4

more likely to report discrimination by teachers In a sample of ethnically diverse US schools a

large percentage of students reported being bullied by peers based on their ethnicity (Bellmore

and Tomonaga 2009) Students who reported ethnicity-based discrimination were more likely to

experience depressive symptoms

The sociologists Ann Swidler (1986 2001 especially p 161) and Paul DiMaggio (1997)

argue that culture as a matter of self-conscious orientation or identity is not a set of values or

preferences but instead is a fragmented set of mental models understandings worldviews and

guides to action and these elements may not be consistent Culture affects action when it is

given force by contexts that organize cultural meanings and bring them to bear on action

Culture shapes behavior through cognitive frames (mental models) that are situationally evoked

and that determine how an individual construes a situation and which actions seem possible and

desirable in that situation given a personrsquos values ldquoIf one asked a slum youth why he did not

take steps to pursue a middle-class path to success hellipthe answer might well be not lsquoI donrsquot want

that lifersquo but instead lsquoWho mersquordquo (Swidler 1986 p 275)

This perspective suggests that the effect of identity on performance may depend on which

of a set of possible mental models is evoked in a given situation To test the hypothesis we draw

on our experiment in rural India that manipulates the classroom setting in which high-caste and

low-caste students are asked to learn and perform a new skill under incentives (Hoff and Pandey

2006) A feature of the caste system that makes it well-suited to identifying the effect of identity

is that an individualrsquos caste is determined by the accident of birth Although caste boundaries

and caste rankings change over long periods the status in north India of the specific high castes

(primarily Thakur and Brahmin) and the specific low caste (Chamar) from which we draw our

participants goes back millennia (Gupta 2000)

5

A second reason that caste is well-suited for the study of the effect of identity on

performance is that the meaning of the caste categories is not in doubt Two central

characteristics of the caste system are hierarchy and repulsion (or difference) between castes

(Gupta 2000) Hierarchy reflects beliefs in essential differences between the castes

For centuries it was believed that a manrsquos social capacities were known from the caste or

the lineage into which he was born and that no further test was necessary to determine

what these capacities were (Beacuteteille p 99)

Repulsion is expressed in endogamy and restrictions on contact between castes in particular

between those distant in rank A body of work in anthropology supports the view that vertical

mobility of the individual within the caste hierarchy was nearly impossible for someone who

remained in or near his village where his caste identity would be known (eg Gupta 2000 and

Srinivas 2009) A low-caste boy could not move up and a high-caste boy could not move

down1 At the bottom of the traditional caste hierarchy are the castes whose members were

marked as polluted They were called ldquountouchablesrdquo and are today called Dalits

Untouchability is the imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in the

certain low castes Dalits were not allowed to own land or use public wells were made to use

separate crockery in food stalls and were not allowed to sit inside a schoolhouse but instead

forced to remain outside

Untouchability is illegal under the Constitution of India and attitudes in Uttar Pradesh

towards Dalits are radically different today from what they were in the recent past (Kapur et al

2010) Evidence of a new social order is visible to every schoolchild in the stipends publicly

distributed to Dalits to encourage school enrollment and in the broad participation of Dalits in

1 Through a political process social mobility was possible on the part of the community but not by individuals (see

Rao and Ban 2007 for a measure of the process of changes in caste groups) For an exception in which individuals

were able to change their status for purposes of British law in India see Cassan (2011)

6

the political process Yet children are also likely to encounter the traditional order of caste

segregation and untouchability in their own experiences through the fables they learn and in

the continued insults and atrocities against upwardly mobile Dalits2 Two surveys give some

indication of how untouchability plays out in schools in humiliation and segregation

One common example of social prejudice in the classroom is the disparaging attitude of

upper caste teachers towards Dalit children This can take various forms such as telling

Dalit children that they are lsquostupidrsquo making them feel inferior using them for menial

chores and giving them liberal physical punishment (PROBE 1999 p 51)

In one out of four primary schools in rural India Dalit children are forced by their

teachers or by convention to sit apart from non-Dalits As many as 40 percent of schools

practice untouchability while serving mid-day meals making Dalit children sit in a

separate row while eating (Shah et al 2006 p168 based on a 2001-02 national survey)

The two social orders coexist in uneasy tensionmdashone in which ldquowe are all equal nowrdquo as some

villagers remarked to us and another in which upward mobility by low-caste individuals is not

liked and could be dangerous

Our experiment assesses the effect on childrenrsquos intellectual performance of making caste

identity public and of segregating children by caste Participants in our experiment were junior

high school boys from the top three castes and from the lowest castes3 In groups of six the

participants were asked to solve mazes under incentives and were randomly assigned to one of

three conditions

(1) In the control condition caste identity which is not discernible from natural physical

2Two examples are illustrative (i) In July 1998 in the state of Uttar Pradesh a High Court judge had his chambers

ldquopurified with Gang jarsquo (water from the River Ganges) because it had earlier been occupied by a Dalit judgerdquo Times

of India (Bombay) July 23 1998 (ii) Increases in wealth among the low-caste community of Pallars from

remittances from the Persian Gulf created tensions that led the entire Dalit population of the village to be driven out

by the marginally higher caste Thevas who set fire to their homes and fields (Human Rights Watch 1999 p 85) a

similar episode occurred elsewhere in 2012 (ldquoWhen development triggers caste violencerdquo The Hindu May 8 2013)

A recent Indian TV show provided one of the first public settings where viewers heard low-caste individuals speak

first-hand about their harsh and horrifying experiences of growing up as untouchables (wwwsatyamevjayatein

episode 10)

3High-caste boys were drawn from Thakurs (62) Brahmins (32) Vaishayas (4) and others (2) Low-caste

boys were drawn only from Chamars In Hardoi district Chamar is considered the lowest caste The set of high

castes and the Chamar caste each makes up somewhat less than 20 of the population of the district

4

more likely to report discrimination by teachers In a sample of ethnically diverse US schools a

large percentage of students reported being bullied by peers based on their ethnicity (Bellmore

and Tomonaga 2009) Students who reported ethnicity-based discrimination were more likely to

experience depressive symptoms

The sociologists Ann Swidler (1986 2001 especially p 161) and Paul DiMaggio (1997)

argue that culture as a matter of self-conscious orientation or identity is not a set of values or

preferences but instead is a fragmented set of mental models understandings worldviews and

guides to action and these elements may not be consistent Culture affects action when it is

given force by contexts that organize cultural meanings and bring them to bear on action

Culture shapes behavior through cognitive frames (mental models) that are situationally evoked

and that determine how an individual construes a situation and which actions seem possible and

desirable in that situation given a personrsquos values ldquoIf one asked a slum youth why he did not

take steps to pursue a middle-class path to success hellipthe answer might well be not lsquoI donrsquot want

that lifersquo but instead lsquoWho mersquordquo (Swidler 1986 p 275)

This perspective suggests that the effect of identity on performance may depend on which

of a set of possible mental models is evoked in a given situation To test the hypothesis we draw

on our experiment in rural India that manipulates the classroom setting in which high-caste and

low-caste students are asked to learn and perform a new skill under incentives (Hoff and Pandey

2006) A feature of the caste system that makes it well-suited to identifying the effect of identity

is that an individualrsquos caste is determined by the accident of birth Although caste boundaries

and caste rankings change over long periods the status in north India of the specific high castes

(primarily Thakur and Brahmin) and the specific low caste (Chamar) from which we draw our

participants goes back millennia (Gupta 2000)

5

A second reason that caste is well-suited for the study of the effect of identity on

performance is that the meaning of the caste categories is not in doubt Two central

characteristics of the caste system are hierarchy and repulsion (or difference) between castes

(Gupta 2000) Hierarchy reflects beliefs in essential differences between the castes

For centuries it was believed that a manrsquos social capacities were known from the caste or

the lineage into which he was born and that no further test was necessary to determine

what these capacities were (Beacuteteille p 99)

Repulsion is expressed in endogamy and restrictions on contact between castes in particular

between those distant in rank A body of work in anthropology supports the view that vertical

mobility of the individual within the caste hierarchy was nearly impossible for someone who

remained in or near his village where his caste identity would be known (eg Gupta 2000 and

Srinivas 2009) A low-caste boy could not move up and a high-caste boy could not move

down1 At the bottom of the traditional caste hierarchy are the castes whose members were

marked as polluted They were called ldquountouchablesrdquo and are today called Dalits

Untouchability is the imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in the

certain low castes Dalits were not allowed to own land or use public wells were made to use

separate crockery in food stalls and were not allowed to sit inside a schoolhouse but instead

forced to remain outside

Untouchability is illegal under the Constitution of India and attitudes in Uttar Pradesh

towards Dalits are radically different today from what they were in the recent past (Kapur et al

2010) Evidence of a new social order is visible to every schoolchild in the stipends publicly

distributed to Dalits to encourage school enrollment and in the broad participation of Dalits in

1 Through a political process social mobility was possible on the part of the community but not by individuals (see

Rao and Ban 2007 for a measure of the process of changes in caste groups) For an exception in which individuals

were able to change their status for purposes of British law in India see Cassan (2011)

6

the political process Yet children are also likely to encounter the traditional order of caste

segregation and untouchability in their own experiences through the fables they learn and in

the continued insults and atrocities against upwardly mobile Dalits2 Two surveys give some

indication of how untouchability plays out in schools in humiliation and segregation

One common example of social prejudice in the classroom is the disparaging attitude of

upper caste teachers towards Dalit children This can take various forms such as telling

Dalit children that they are lsquostupidrsquo making them feel inferior using them for menial

chores and giving them liberal physical punishment (PROBE 1999 p 51)

In one out of four primary schools in rural India Dalit children are forced by their

teachers or by convention to sit apart from non-Dalits As many as 40 percent of schools

practice untouchability while serving mid-day meals making Dalit children sit in a

separate row while eating (Shah et al 2006 p168 based on a 2001-02 national survey)

The two social orders coexist in uneasy tensionmdashone in which ldquowe are all equal nowrdquo as some

villagers remarked to us and another in which upward mobility by low-caste individuals is not

liked and could be dangerous

Our experiment assesses the effect on childrenrsquos intellectual performance of making caste

identity public and of segregating children by caste Participants in our experiment were junior

high school boys from the top three castes and from the lowest castes3 In groups of six the

participants were asked to solve mazes under incentives and were randomly assigned to one of

three conditions

(1) In the control condition caste identity which is not discernible from natural physical

2Two examples are illustrative (i) In July 1998 in the state of Uttar Pradesh a High Court judge had his chambers

ldquopurified with Gang jarsquo (water from the River Ganges) because it had earlier been occupied by a Dalit judgerdquo Times

of India (Bombay) July 23 1998 (ii) Increases in wealth among the low-caste community of Pallars from

remittances from the Persian Gulf created tensions that led the entire Dalit population of the village to be driven out

by the marginally higher caste Thevas who set fire to their homes and fields (Human Rights Watch 1999 p 85) a

similar episode occurred elsewhere in 2012 (ldquoWhen development triggers caste violencerdquo The Hindu May 8 2013)

A recent Indian TV show provided one of the first public settings where viewers heard low-caste individuals speak

first-hand about their harsh and horrifying experiences of growing up as untouchables (wwwsatyamevjayatein

episode 10)

3High-caste boys were drawn from Thakurs (62) Brahmins (32) Vaishayas (4) and others (2) Low-caste

boys were drawn only from Chamars In Hardoi district Chamar is considered the lowest caste The set of high

castes and the Chamar caste each makes up somewhat less than 20 of the population of the district

5

A second reason that caste is well-suited for the study of the effect of identity on

performance is that the meaning of the caste categories is not in doubt Two central

characteristics of the caste system are hierarchy and repulsion (or difference) between castes

(Gupta 2000) Hierarchy reflects beliefs in essential differences between the castes

For centuries it was believed that a manrsquos social capacities were known from the caste or

the lineage into which he was born and that no further test was necessary to determine

what these capacities were (Beacuteteille p 99)

Repulsion is expressed in endogamy and restrictions on contact between castes in particular

between those distant in rank A body of work in anthropology supports the view that vertical

mobility of the individual within the caste hierarchy was nearly impossible for someone who

remained in or near his village where his caste identity would be known (eg Gupta 2000 and

Srinivas 2009) A low-caste boy could not move up and a high-caste boy could not move

down1 At the bottom of the traditional caste hierarchy are the castes whose members were

marked as polluted They were called ldquountouchablesrdquo and are today called Dalits

Untouchability is the imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in the

certain low castes Dalits were not allowed to own land or use public wells were made to use

separate crockery in food stalls and were not allowed to sit inside a schoolhouse but instead

forced to remain outside

Untouchability is illegal under the Constitution of India and attitudes in Uttar Pradesh

towards Dalits are radically different today from what they were in the recent past (Kapur et al

2010) Evidence of a new social order is visible to every schoolchild in the stipends publicly

distributed to Dalits to encourage school enrollment and in the broad participation of Dalits in

1 Through a political process social mobility was possible on the part of the community but not by individuals (see

Rao and Ban 2007 for a measure of the process of changes in caste groups) For an exception in which individuals

were able to change their status for purposes of British law in India see Cassan (2011)

6

the political process Yet children are also likely to encounter the traditional order of caste

segregation and untouchability in their own experiences through the fables they learn and in

the continued insults and atrocities against upwardly mobile Dalits2 Two surveys give some

indication of how untouchability plays out in schools in humiliation and segregation

One common example of social prejudice in the classroom is the disparaging attitude of

upper caste teachers towards Dalit children This can take various forms such as telling

Dalit children that they are lsquostupidrsquo making them feel inferior using them for menial

chores and giving them liberal physical punishment (PROBE 1999 p 51)

In one out of four primary schools in rural India Dalit children are forced by their

teachers or by convention to sit apart from non-Dalits As many as 40 percent of schools

practice untouchability while serving mid-day meals making Dalit children sit in a

separate row while eating (Shah et al 2006 p168 based on a 2001-02 national survey)

The two social orders coexist in uneasy tensionmdashone in which ldquowe are all equal nowrdquo as some

villagers remarked to us and another in which upward mobility by low-caste individuals is not

liked and could be dangerous

Our experiment assesses the effect on childrenrsquos intellectual performance of making caste

identity public and of segregating children by caste Participants in our experiment were junior

high school boys from the top three castes and from the lowest castes3 In groups of six the

participants were asked to solve mazes under incentives and were randomly assigned to one of

three conditions

(1) In the control condition caste identity which is not discernible from natural physical

2Two examples are illustrative (i) In July 1998 in the state of Uttar Pradesh a High Court judge had his chambers

ldquopurified with Gang jarsquo (water from the River Ganges) because it had earlier been occupied by a Dalit judgerdquo Times

of India (Bombay) July 23 1998 (ii) Increases in wealth among the low-caste community of Pallars from

remittances from the Persian Gulf created tensions that led the entire Dalit population of the village to be driven out

by the marginally higher caste Thevas who set fire to their homes and fields (Human Rights Watch 1999 p 85) a

similar episode occurred elsewhere in 2012 (ldquoWhen development triggers caste violencerdquo The Hindu May 8 2013)

A recent Indian TV show provided one of the first public settings where viewers heard low-caste individuals speak

first-hand about their harsh and horrifying experiences of growing up as untouchables (wwwsatyamevjayatein

episode 10)

3High-caste boys were drawn from Thakurs (62) Brahmins (32) Vaishayas (4) and others (2) Low-caste

boys were drawn only from Chamars In Hardoi district Chamar is considered the lowest caste The set of high

castes and the Chamar caste each makes up somewhat less than 20 of the population of the district

6

the political process Yet children are also likely to encounter the traditional order of caste

segregation and untouchability in their own experiences through the fables they learn and in

the continued insults and atrocities against upwardly mobile Dalits2 Two surveys give some

indication of how untouchability plays out in schools in humiliation and segregation

One common example of social prejudice in the classroom is the disparaging attitude of

upper caste teachers towards Dalit children This can take various forms such as telling

Dalit children that they are lsquostupidrsquo making them feel inferior using them for menial

chores and giving them liberal physical punishment (PROBE 1999 p 51)

In one out of four primary schools in rural India Dalit children are forced by their

teachers or by convention to sit apart from non-Dalits As many as 40 percent of schools

practice untouchability while serving mid-day meals making Dalit children sit in a

separate row while eating (Shah et al 2006 p168 based on a 2001-02 national survey)

The two social orders coexist in uneasy tensionmdashone in which ldquowe are all equal nowrdquo as some

villagers remarked to us and another in which upward mobility by low-caste individuals is not

liked and could be dangerous

Our experiment assesses the effect on childrenrsquos intellectual performance of making caste

identity public and of segregating children by caste Participants in our experiment were junior

high school boys from the top three castes and from the lowest castes3 In groups of six the

participants were asked to solve mazes under incentives and were randomly assigned to one of

three conditions

(1) In the control condition caste identity which is not discernible from natural physical

2Two examples are illustrative (i) In July 1998 in the state of Uttar Pradesh a High Court judge had his chambers

ldquopurified with Gang jarsquo (water from the River Ganges) because it had earlier been occupied by a Dalit judgerdquo Times

of India (Bombay) July 23 1998 (ii) Increases in wealth among the low-caste community of Pallars from

remittances from the Persian Gulf created tensions that led the entire Dalit population of the village to be driven out

by the marginally higher caste Thevas who set fire to their homes and fields (Human Rights Watch 1999 p 85) a

similar episode occurred elsewhere in 2012 (ldquoWhen development triggers caste violencerdquo The Hindu May 8 2013)

A recent Indian TV show provided one of the first public settings where viewers heard low-caste individuals speak

first-hand about their harsh and horrifying experiences of growing up as untouchables (wwwsatyamevjayatein

episode 10)

3High-caste boys were drawn from Thakurs (62) Brahmins (32) Vaishayas (4) and others (2) Low-caste

boys were drawn only from Chamars In Hardoi district Chamar is considered the lowest caste The set of high

castes and the Chamar caste each makes up somewhat less than 20 of the population of the district

7

markers4 was not made public in a session of three high-caste and three low-caste boys Since

there is a large overlap in poverty between high- and low-caste households in the local

population quality of dress is not an automatic sign of caste status We call the control condition

Caste Not Revealed

(2) The second condition (Revealed Mixed) was the same as the control except that caste

identity was made public

(3) The third condition (Revealed Segregated) was the same as the second except that a

session was composed of only high-caste boys or only low-caste boys Participants would likely

have been aware that the composition of their session reflected deliberate segregation by caste

status This is so because participants were driven to the experimental site with other boys from

their village whose caste they would know in groups equally divided between high and low

castes After arriving at the school that was the site of the experiment individuals were assigned

to new groups of six boys to participate in an experimental session The probability that a boy

would find himself in a group with five other boys of his same caste status as a result of a

random draw of the entire local school population was very smallmdashless than (02)5

= 000032 If

children perceived the segregation as deliberate it is likely that they would also perceive it as

meaningful in the context of the traditional caste system in which high castes are not supposed to

mingle with Dalits The practice of segregation remains in many villages an issue over which

high and low castes struggle (Human Rights Watch 1999)

The control condition shows that low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste

boys This is true under piece-rate incentives It is also true under the tournament incentive We

4 See Deliege (1999) and Gupta (2000) In contrast Hindu surnames do mark caste For that reason some low-caste

groups have sought a constitutional amendment to abolish Hindu surnames (The Telegraph October 15 2005

ldquoSlash Surname to Kill Casterdquo) Thanks for Pranab Bardhan for this reference

8

have three main results for the effects of revealing caste (All effects reported here are

significant and control for individual characteristics)

Result 1 Under piece-rate incentives publicly revealing caste in mixed-caste groups

creates a 23 caste gap in total mazes solved in favor of the high castes Since there was no

caste gap in the control we infer that in other possible worlds the low castes could have been an

equal or dominant group Here a social identity has affected behavior Underlying the caste gap

is an increase when caste is revealed in the proportion of low-caste boys who fail to learn to

solve mazes Our first result extends to a new social groupmdashlow-caste individuals of Indiamdasha

body of work in psychology that finds that cues to a personrsquos identity if it is stereotyped as

intellectually inferior may undermine the personrsquos ability to perform cognitive tasks (stereotype

threat)

Result 2 Under piece-rate incentives both high- and low-caste boys underperform by

over 20 when caste is publicly revealed in segregated groups Stereotype susceptibility would

predict this result for the low caste but it would not predict this result for the high caste

Furthermore all available evidence ndashfrom failure rates to learn how to solve a maze in this

experiment and from a direct test of self-confidence in another study (Hoff and Pandey 2005)mdash

show that the Revealed Segregated condition does not lower the self-confidence of high-caste

boys To us the most plausible interpretation of the decline in high-caste performance is that

segregation is a marker of high-caste dominance and evokes a sense of entitlement in which the

high-caste boys feel less need to achieve As the Indian sociologist Andreacute Beacuteteille notes in the

caste system social preeminence is assigned by birth rather than by competition (Beacuteteille (2011

II [2003] p 11)

9

Result 3 Under tournament incentives both high-caste and low-caste boys

underperform when caste is revealed but in the segregated condition the effect is much larger

for low-caste boys In a tournament strategic rather than psychological factors could explain

why revealing identity impairs performance Because we cannot disentangle these factors we

relegate the analysis of the tournaments to the appendix

2 The Fixed Self and the Frame-Dependent Self

Our experiment will allow us to discriminate between two broad sets of theories about how

social identity might affect performance We will call the two sets of theories the fixed self and

the frame-dependent self

The Fixed Self

A broad class of theories takes the view that an individual at a moment in time has fixed

well-defined preferences and abilities They provide all the information that is relevant for

describing the individualrsquos choices and outcomes for a given set of opportunities In the

textbook model in economics an individual has preferences in which a sense of identity with

others has no influence This theory is one of the fundamental differences between the standard

model of economics and the concept of the individual that other social sciences find useful in

which socially defined variables such as conformity affect preferences

The theory that an individual has at any moment in time a well-defined set of

preferences and that they are always salient is maintained in recent work that substantially

broadens the notion of preferences by incorporating onersquos sense of group membership In

Akerlof and Kranton (2000) a social category constitutes part of an individualrsquos identity

Associated with the category are a set of norms or ideals for how someone in the category should

10

behave The individual likes conforming to the ideals of that category and dislikes actions by

others that deviate from the ideals

An individual may be able to choose his social identities ie he can define himself and

his relationships to others at a categorical level (Akerlof and Kranton 2002 Fang and Loury

2005 Hoff and Sen 2006 and Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Sen 2006 Munshi and Wilson

2008) For example a descendant of Irish immigrants to the US can define himself as Irish-

American or not The individualrsquos choice problem makes sense only under the assumption that

an individual has a meta-utility function However just as in the two theories above an

individual has well-defined preferences that provide all the information that is relevant for

describing his choices and outcomes for a given set of opportunities

The Frame-Dependent Self

The other broad class of theories draws on a certain view of how the mind works

namely that information is processed in relation to mental models (references are in Tversky

and Kahneman 1983 and an elaboration is in DiMaggio 1997) Individuals have multiple mental

models they may not be consistent and they are situationally evoked

An experiment from Tversky and Kahneman illustrates the powerful effect of cues on

cognition A group of subjects are asked How many seven-letter words of which the sixth letter

is ldquoNrdquo (_ _ _ _ _ N _) would you expect to find in four pages of a novel (about 2000 words)

The same group of subjects are also asked How many seven-letter words of which the last three

letters are ldquoINGrdquo (_ _ _ _ ING) would you expect to find in four pages of a novel (about 2000

words) The median estimate is several times greater for ING words than for _N_ words The

11

responses violate logic but can be explained this way _ING words are a standard category (a

very simple mental structure) _N_ words are not and categories shape how we think5

There is substantial evidence that the setting in which alternatives are offered affects

choices and that one mechanism underlying this influence is that the setting evokes a particular

mental model or aspect of the self For example in the studies of Benjamin et al (2010)

LeBeouf et al (2010) and Cohn et al (2013) individuals were randomly assigned to fill out

background questionnaires that either included questions related to an aspect of their identities or

that did not A questionnaire that primed Asian identity made Asian-Americans more

cooperative and patient a questionnaire that primed a family-oriented identity strengthened

values related to family obligations and a questionnaire that primed the prisoner identity of

prison inmates led them to cheat more Even the language of thought affects behavior studies

with bilingual students find that randomly directing them to use one or the other of their two

languages shifts their implicit attitudes and behavior (Danziger and Ward 2010 and Ogunnaike et

al 2010) In the study of Lambarraa et al (2012) which also uses bilingual subjects the

language of thought in the period before the subject has to make a choice influences his

behavior Since the decision-making situation is exactly the same but only the prior language

has changed it is clear that context has changed not what it is objectively appropriate to do but

instead the way that the subject evaluates his choices The effect of context on behavior is

analogous to the effect of the environment on the expression of an individualrsquos genes DNA are

the instructions for making an individual but as yet poorly understood features of the

environment determine the on-and-off states of genes (See Salant and Rubinstein 2008 for a

model of frame-dependent utility)

5 A second example is that the distinctions between colors in the language one speaks influence the speed with

which one can perceive distinct colors See Alter (2013 ch 2) for a popular lively account of the influence of

categories on cognition

12

The idea of an extended utility function is interesting when it leads to the observation of

inconsistent choices Of course if we knew all the stimuli to the individual then the theory of

rationality (ie consistency) would be trivial Since we do not observe all stimuli and our

understanding of how individuals process information is limited it becomes a useful construct to

posit multiple preferences one for each self-construal or worldview

Useful for what purpose It may be useful for understanding long-run social change

which entails changes in the set of possible identities the salience of particular identities and the

possible ways of understanding a situation In the process of economic development the stimuli

to an individual can change in a way that leads to the expression of one set of preferences rather

than another that is preferences depend on context and frames

Finally an influential body of evidence in psychology on stereotype threat (and to a

lesser extent stereotype boost) relates to the influence of context on human productivity In

experiments over many domains (eg SATs and sports) priming a negatively or positively

stereotyped aspect of an individualrsquos identity shifts performance in the direction of the

stereotype for instance African-Americans do worse on scholastic aptitude tests if before the

test they are asked to check a box for their race (Steele and Aronson 1995) Asian-American

women if the Asian aspect of identity is made salient do better on math tests than women in the

no-prime condition but if their gender is made salient do worse than women in the no-prime

condition (Shih Pittinsky and Ambady 1999) Children in both lower elementary grades and

middle school grades (but not those in upper elementary grades) show shifts in performance

consistent with the patterns of stereotype threat and stereotype boost (Ambady et al 2001 and

Afridi Li and Ren 2010) However other studies do not find evidence of stereotype threat (eg

Fryer Levitt and List 2008) When stereotype threat occurs results in neuroscience support the

13

view that the stereotype is a powerful distractor in the task that subjects are trying to accomplish

In Krendl et al (2008) women taking a math test in conditions of stereotype threat did not

recruit the neural regions associated with mathematical learning but instead showed heightened

activation in a neural region associated with social and emotional processing Neuroscientists

also find that early environmental exposure can affect the chemistry of the DNA with a long-

term effect on onersquos responses to stress (Begley 2007 and Pollak 2008) Children who have a

history of exposure to stressful events react more strongly to stress We conjecture that for a

low-caste child who has encountered stressful events related to his caste identity increasing the

salience of caste is a source of stress In contrast a high-caste child because of his early

experiences may find comfort and power in contexts in which his caste identity is salient

3 Participants and Design

288 high-caste (hereafter H) and 294 low-caste (hereafter L) in 6th

or 7th

grade in the district of

Hardoi in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh participated in the study Hardoi was under feudal

rule in the 19th

century and the feudal elite was made up of the high castes A legacy of feudal

rule is greater high-caste dominance compared to regions of Uttar Pradesh not under such rule

(Pandey 2010) Thus the site of our experiment is a relatively high-caste dominant district of a

region of India (the North) in which caste divisions run deep

In the experiment participants in groups of six solved mazes in a classroom The six

boys in a session were generally recruited from six different villages but since this was not

always the case we will control for the number of other participants that a participant knew

Participants were brought to the experiment site by car Just before entering the car each

participant was asked in private his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and

caste On arriving at the site we verified in private with each participant his name and caste

14

before randomly assigning him to a treatment

Three conditions varied the salience of caste in the session which was always led by a

high-caste young female experimenter

Caste Not Revealed (the control condition) A session was composed of 3 H and 3 L No

personal information about the participants was revealed

Revealed Mixed (ie caste revealed in a mixed-caste session) The composition of a

session was the same as in the preceding condition but now the experimenter began a

session by saying that she would like to confirm some information with each participant

who should nod if it is correct Then the experimenter turned to each participant and

stated his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and caste

Revealed Segregated (ie caste revealed in a segregated session) This was the same as

the preceding condition except that a session was composed of either 6 H or 6 L

The priming mechanism reflects a way in which caste identity is actually made salient in

classroom settings This increases the external validity of our results Although an individualrsquos

caste is widely known in a village publicly referring to a childrsquos caste is not uncommon in rural

schools There is anecdotal evidence of teachers telling low-caste children to not drink from the

tap at the school lest it pollute the water for others While implementing this study we came

across some such instances Caste is commonly recorded in school enrollment books often

using different colors for high and low castes to identify caste-targeted entitlements such as

stipends and uniforms provided by state governments In villages people are frequently called

by their caste names Following the common usage in this area and the way that caste is

recorded in school enrollment books we used the traditional name for each caste (Thakur

Chamar etc) in revealing caste identity6

6 In the 1998-99 Indian National Family Health Survey households were asked to name their caste Most low-caste

respondents gave their actual caste name (eg Chamar) but a few used the more generic and politically correct

names Dalit harijan or Scheduled Caste (Marriott 2003)

15

We next describe the incentive schemes Participants were given a packet of 15 mazes to

solve in each of two 15-minute rounds7 Some participants had piece-rate incentives in both

rounds (the ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) others had piece-rate incentives in round 1 and tournament

incentives in round 2 (the ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the piece-rate scheme a participant earned

one rupee per maze solved Under the tournament scheme he earned six rupees per maze solved

if he solved the most mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing In case of a tie both

winners received the prize The tournament provided high-powered incentives a winner could

(and some did) earn 15 x 6 rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages

Figure 1 gives the organization of the experiment Experimental conditions were

identical in the first round of treatments (1) and (4) (2) and (5) and (3) and (6) and so we will

pool them when reporting first-round results

Figure 1 Experiment Design

Note PP means that the piece rate incentive applies in both rounds of maze-solving PT means that the piece rate

incentive applies in round 1 and the tournament incentive applies in round 2

7 The mazes are Xerox copies from httpgamesyahoocomgamesmazehtml level 3 Gneezy Niederle and

Rustichini (2003) showed that individuals do not solve mazes just for fun they respond to incentives

8

have three main results for the effects of revealing caste (All effects reported here are

significant and control for individual characteristics)

Result 1 Under piece-rate incentives publicly revealing caste in mixed-caste groups

creates a 23 caste gap in total mazes solved in favor of the high castes Since there was no

caste gap in the control we infer that in other possible worlds the low castes could have been an

equal or dominant group Here a social identity has affected behavior Underlying the caste gap

is an increase when caste is revealed in the proportion of low-caste boys who fail to learn to

solve mazes Our first result extends to a new social groupmdashlow-caste individuals of Indiamdasha

body of work in psychology that finds that cues to a personrsquos identity if it is stereotyped as

intellectually inferior may undermine the personrsquos ability to perform cognitive tasks (stereotype

threat)

Result 2 Under piece-rate incentives both high- and low-caste boys underperform by

over 20 when caste is publicly revealed in segregated groups Stereotype susceptibility would

predict this result for the low caste but it would not predict this result for the high caste

Furthermore all available evidence ndashfrom failure rates to learn how to solve a maze in this

experiment and from a direct test of self-confidence in another study (Hoff and Pandey 2005)mdash

show that the Revealed Segregated condition does not lower the self-confidence of high-caste

boys To us the most plausible interpretation of the decline in high-caste performance is that

segregation is a marker of high-caste dominance and evokes a sense of entitlement in which the

high-caste boys feel less need to achieve As the Indian sociologist Andreacute Beacuteteille notes in the

caste system social preeminence is assigned by birth rather than by competition (Beacuteteille (2011

II [2003] p 11)

9

Result 3 Under tournament incentives both high-caste and low-caste boys

underperform when caste is revealed but in the segregated condition the effect is much larger

for low-caste boys In a tournament strategic rather than psychological factors could explain

why revealing identity impairs performance Because we cannot disentangle these factors we

relegate the analysis of the tournaments to the appendix

2 The Fixed Self and the Frame-Dependent Self

Our experiment will allow us to discriminate between two broad sets of theories about how

social identity might affect performance We will call the two sets of theories the fixed self and

the frame-dependent self

The Fixed Self

A broad class of theories takes the view that an individual at a moment in time has fixed

well-defined preferences and abilities They provide all the information that is relevant for

describing the individualrsquos choices and outcomes for a given set of opportunities In the

textbook model in economics an individual has preferences in which a sense of identity with

others has no influence This theory is one of the fundamental differences between the standard

model of economics and the concept of the individual that other social sciences find useful in

which socially defined variables such as conformity affect preferences

The theory that an individual has at any moment in time a well-defined set of

preferences and that they are always salient is maintained in recent work that substantially

broadens the notion of preferences by incorporating onersquos sense of group membership In

Akerlof and Kranton (2000) a social category constitutes part of an individualrsquos identity

Associated with the category are a set of norms or ideals for how someone in the category should

10

behave The individual likes conforming to the ideals of that category and dislikes actions by

others that deviate from the ideals

An individual may be able to choose his social identities ie he can define himself and

his relationships to others at a categorical level (Akerlof and Kranton 2002 Fang and Loury

2005 Hoff and Sen 2006 and Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Sen 2006 Munshi and Wilson

2008) For example a descendant of Irish immigrants to the US can define himself as Irish-

American or not The individualrsquos choice problem makes sense only under the assumption that

an individual has a meta-utility function However just as in the two theories above an

individual has well-defined preferences that provide all the information that is relevant for

describing his choices and outcomes for a given set of opportunities

The Frame-Dependent Self

The other broad class of theories draws on a certain view of how the mind works

namely that information is processed in relation to mental models (references are in Tversky

and Kahneman 1983 and an elaboration is in DiMaggio 1997) Individuals have multiple mental

models they may not be consistent and they are situationally evoked

An experiment from Tversky and Kahneman illustrates the powerful effect of cues on

cognition A group of subjects are asked How many seven-letter words of which the sixth letter

is ldquoNrdquo (_ _ _ _ _ N _) would you expect to find in four pages of a novel (about 2000 words)

The same group of subjects are also asked How many seven-letter words of which the last three

letters are ldquoINGrdquo (_ _ _ _ ING) would you expect to find in four pages of a novel (about 2000

words) The median estimate is several times greater for ING words than for _N_ words The

11

responses violate logic but can be explained this way _ING words are a standard category (a

very simple mental structure) _N_ words are not and categories shape how we think5

There is substantial evidence that the setting in which alternatives are offered affects

choices and that one mechanism underlying this influence is that the setting evokes a particular

mental model or aspect of the self For example in the studies of Benjamin et al (2010)

LeBeouf et al (2010) and Cohn et al (2013) individuals were randomly assigned to fill out

background questionnaires that either included questions related to an aspect of their identities or

that did not A questionnaire that primed Asian identity made Asian-Americans more

cooperative and patient a questionnaire that primed a family-oriented identity strengthened

values related to family obligations and a questionnaire that primed the prisoner identity of

prison inmates led them to cheat more Even the language of thought affects behavior studies

with bilingual students find that randomly directing them to use one or the other of their two

languages shifts their implicit attitudes and behavior (Danziger and Ward 2010 and Ogunnaike et

al 2010) In the study of Lambarraa et al (2012) which also uses bilingual subjects the

language of thought in the period before the subject has to make a choice influences his

behavior Since the decision-making situation is exactly the same but only the prior language

has changed it is clear that context has changed not what it is objectively appropriate to do but

instead the way that the subject evaluates his choices The effect of context on behavior is

analogous to the effect of the environment on the expression of an individualrsquos genes DNA are

the instructions for making an individual but as yet poorly understood features of the

environment determine the on-and-off states of genes (See Salant and Rubinstein 2008 for a

model of frame-dependent utility)

5 A second example is that the distinctions between colors in the language one speaks influence the speed with

which one can perceive distinct colors See Alter (2013 ch 2) for a popular lively account of the influence of

categories on cognition

12

The idea of an extended utility function is interesting when it leads to the observation of

inconsistent choices Of course if we knew all the stimuli to the individual then the theory of

rationality (ie consistency) would be trivial Since we do not observe all stimuli and our

understanding of how individuals process information is limited it becomes a useful construct to

posit multiple preferences one for each self-construal or worldview

Useful for what purpose It may be useful for understanding long-run social change

which entails changes in the set of possible identities the salience of particular identities and the

possible ways of understanding a situation In the process of economic development the stimuli

to an individual can change in a way that leads to the expression of one set of preferences rather

than another that is preferences depend on context and frames

Finally an influential body of evidence in psychology on stereotype threat (and to a

lesser extent stereotype boost) relates to the influence of context on human productivity In

experiments over many domains (eg SATs and sports) priming a negatively or positively

stereotyped aspect of an individualrsquos identity shifts performance in the direction of the

stereotype for instance African-Americans do worse on scholastic aptitude tests if before the

test they are asked to check a box for their race (Steele and Aronson 1995) Asian-American

women if the Asian aspect of identity is made salient do better on math tests than women in the

no-prime condition but if their gender is made salient do worse than women in the no-prime

condition (Shih Pittinsky and Ambady 1999) Children in both lower elementary grades and

middle school grades (but not those in upper elementary grades) show shifts in performance

consistent with the patterns of stereotype threat and stereotype boost (Ambady et al 2001 and

Afridi Li and Ren 2010) However other studies do not find evidence of stereotype threat (eg

Fryer Levitt and List 2008) When stereotype threat occurs results in neuroscience support the

13

view that the stereotype is a powerful distractor in the task that subjects are trying to accomplish

In Krendl et al (2008) women taking a math test in conditions of stereotype threat did not

recruit the neural regions associated with mathematical learning but instead showed heightened

activation in a neural region associated with social and emotional processing Neuroscientists

also find that early environmental exposure can affect the chemistry of the DNA with a long-

term effect on onersquos responses to stress (Begley 2007 and Pollak 2008) Children who have a

history of exposure to stressful events react more strongly to stress We conjecture that for a

low-caste child who has encountered stressful events related to his caste identity increasing the

salience of caste is a source of stress In contrast a high-caste child because of his early

experiences may find comfort and power in contexts in which his caste identity is salient

3 Participants and Design

288 high-caste (hereafter H) and 294 low-caste (hereafter L) in 6th

or 7th

grade in the district of

Hardoi in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh participated in the study Hardoi was under feudal

rule in the 19th

century and the feudal elite was made up of the high castes A legacy of feudal

rule is greater high-caste dominance compared to regions of Uttar Pradesh not under such rule

(Pandey 2010) Thus the site of our experiment is a relatively high-caste dominant district of a

region of India (the North) in which caste divisions run deep

In the experiment participants in groups of six solved mazes in a classroom The six

boys in a session were generally recruited from six different villages but since this was not

always the case we will control for the number of other participants that a participant knew

Participants were brought to the experiment site by car Just before entering the car each

participant was asked in private his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and

caste On arriving at the site we verified in private with each participant his name and caste

14

before randomly assigning him to a treatment

Three conditions varied the salience of caste in the session which was always led by a

high-caste young female experimenter

Caste Not Revealed (the control condition) A session was composed of 3 H and 3 L No

personal information about the participants was revealed

Revealed Mixed (ie caste revealed in a mixed-caste session) The composition of a

session was the same as in the preceding condition but now the experimenter began a

session by saying that she would like to confirm some information with each participant

who should nod if it is correct Then the experimenter turned to each participant and

stated his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and caste

Revealed Segregated (ie caste revealed in a segregated session) This was the same as

the preceding condition except that a session was composed of either 6 H or 6 L

The priming mechanism reflects a way in which caste identity is actually made salient in

classroom settings This increases the external validity of our results Although an individualrsquos

caste is widely known in a village publicly referring to a childrsquos caste is not uncommon in rural

schools There is anecdotal evidence of teachers telling low-caste children to not drink from the

tap at the school lest it pollute the water for others While implementing this study we came

across some such instances Caste is commonly recorded in school enrollment books often

using different colors for high and low castes to identify caste-targeted entitlements such as

stipends and uniforms provided by state governments In villages people are frequently called

by their caste names Following the common usage in this area and the way that caste is

recorded in school enrollment books we used the traditional name for each caste (Thakur

Chamar etc) in revealing caste identity6

6 In the 1998-99 Indian National Family Health Survey households were asked to name their caste Most low-caste

respondents gave their actual caste name (eg Chamar) but a few used the more generic and politically correct

names Dalit harijan or Scheduled Caste (Marriott 2003)

15

We next describe the incentive schemes Participants were given a packet of 15 mazes to

solve in each of two 15-minute rounds7 Some participants had piece-rate incentives in both

rounds (the ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) others had piece-rate incentives in round 1 and tournament

incentives in round 2 (the ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the piece-rate scheme a participant earned

one rupee per maze solved Under the tournament scheme he earned six rupees per maze solved

if he solved the most mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing In case of a tie both

winners received the prize The tournament provided high-powered incentives a winner could

(and some did) earn 15 x 6 rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages

Figure 1 gives the organization of the experiment Experimental conditions were

identical in the first round of treatments (1) and (4) (2) and (5) and (3) and (6) and so we will

pool them when reporting first-round results

Figure 1 Experiment Design

Note PP means that the piece rate incentive applies in both rounds of maze-solving PT means that the piece rate

incentive applies in round 1 and the tournament incentive applies in round 2

7 The mazes are Xerox copies from httpgamesyahoocomgamesmazehtml level 3 Gneezy Niederle and

Rustichini (2003) showed that individuals do not solve mazes just for fun they respond to incentives

9

Result 3 Under tournament incentives both high-caste and low-caste boys

underperform when caste is revealed but in the segregated condition the effect is much larger

for low-caste boys In a tournament strategic rather than psychological factors could explain

why revealing identity impairs performance Because we cannot disentangle these factors we

relegate the analysis of the tournaments to the appendix

2 The Fixed Self and the Frame-Dependent Self

Our experiment will allow us to discriminate between two broad sets of theories about how

social identity might affect performance We will call the two sets of theories the fixed self and

the frame-dependent self

The Fixed Self

A broad class of theories takes the view that an individual at a moment in time has fixed

well-defined preferences and abilities They provide all the information that is relevant for

describing the individualrsquos choices and outcomes for a given set of opportunities In the

textbook model in economics an individual has preferences in which a sense of identity with

others has no influence This theory is one of the fundamental differences between the standard

model of economics and the concept of the individual that other social sciences find useful in

which socially defined variables such as conformity affect preferences

The theory that an individual has at any moment in time a well-defined set of

preferences and that they are always salient is maintained in recent work that substantially

broadens the notion of preferences by incorporating onersquos sense of group membership In

Akerlof and Kranton (2000) a social category constitutes part of an individualrsquos identity

Associated with the category are a set of norms or ideals for how someone in the category should

10

behave The individual likes conforming to the ideals of that category and dislikes actions by

others that deviate from the ideals

An individual may be able to choose his social identities ie he can define himself and

his relationships to others at a categorical level (Akerlof and Kranton 2002 Fang and Loury

2005 Hoff and Sen 2006 and Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Sen 2006 Munshi and Wilson

2008) For example a descendant of Irish immigrants to the US can define himself as Irish-

American or not The individualrsquos choice problem makes sense only under the assumption that

an individual has a meta-utility function However just as in the two theories above an

individual has well-defined preferences that provide all the information that is relevant for

describing his choices and outcomes for a given set of opportunities

The Frame-Dependent Self

The other broad class of theories draws on a certain view of how the mind works

namely that information is processed in relation to mental models (references are in Tversky

and Kahneman 1983 and an elaboration is in DiMaggio 1997) Individuals have multiple mental

models they may not be consistent and they are situationally evoked

An experiment from Tversky and Kahneman illustrates the powerful effect of cues on

cognition A group of subjects are asked How many seven-letter words of which the sixth letter

is ldquoNrdquo (_ _ _ _ _ N _) would you expect to find in four pages of a novel (about 2000 words)

The same group of subjects are also asked How many seven-letter words of which the last three

letters are ldquoINGrdquo (_ _ _ _ ING) would you expect to find in four pages of a novel (about 2000

words) The median estimate is several times greater for ING words than for _N_ words The

11

responses violate logic but can be explained this way _ING words are a standard category (a

very simple mental structure) _N_ words are not and categories shape how we think5

There is substantial evidence that the setting in which alternatives are offered affects

choices and that one mechanism underlying this influence is that the setting evokes a particular

mental model or aspect of the self For example in the studies of Benjamin et al (2010)

LeBeouf et al (2010) and Cohn et al (2013) individuals were randomly assigned to fill out

background questionnaires that either included questions related to an aspect of their identities or

that did not A questionnaire that primed Asian identity made Asian-Americans more

cooperative and patient a questionnaire that primed a family-oriented identity strengthened

values related to family obligations and a questionnaire that primed the prisoner identity of

prison inmates led them to cheat more Even the language of thought affects behavior studies

with bilingual students find that randomly directing them to use one or the other of their two

languages shifts their implicit attitudes and behavior (Danziger and Ward 2010 and Ogunnaike et

al 2010) In the study of Lambarraa et al (2012) which also uses bilingual subjects the

language of thought in the period before the subject has to make a choice influences his

behavior Since the decision-making situation is exactly the same but only the prior language

has changed it is clear that context has changed not what it is objectively appropriate to do but

instead the way that the subject evaluates his choices The effect of context on behavior is

analogous to the effect of the environment on the expression of an individualrsquos genes DNA are

the instructions for making an individual but as yet poorly understood features of the

environment determine the on-and-off states of genes (See Salant and Rubinstein 2008 for a

model of frame-dependent utility)

5 A second example is that the distinctions between colors in the language one speaks influence the speed with

which one can perceive distinct colors See Alter (2013 ch 2) for a popular lively account of the influence of

categories on cognition

12

The idea of an extended utility function is interesting when it leads to the observation of

inconsistent choices Of course if we knew all the stimuli to the individual then the theory of

rationality (ie consistency) would be trivial Since we do not observe all stimuli and our

understanding of how individuals process information is limited it becomes a useful construct to

posit multiple preferences one for each self-construal or worldview

Useful for what purpose It may be useful for understanding long-run social change

which entails changes in the set of possible identities the salience of particular identities and the

possible ways of understanding a situation In the process of economic development the stimuli

to an individual can change in a way that leads to the expression of one set of preferences rather

than another that is preferences depend on context and frames

Finally an influential body of evidence in psychology on stereotype threat (and to a

lesser extent stereotype boost) relates to the influence of context on human productivity In

experiments over many domains (eg SATs and sports) priming a negatively or positively

stereotyped aspect of an individualrsquos identity shifts performance in the direction of the

stereotype for instance African-Americans do worse on scholastic aptitude tests if before the

test they are asked to check a box for their race (Steele and Aronson 1995) Asian-American

women if the Asian aspect of identity is made salient do better on math tests than women in the

no-prime condition but if their gender is made salient do worse than women in the no-prime

condition (Shih Pittinsky and Ambady 1999) Children in both lower elementary grades and

middle school grades (but not those in upper elementary grades) show shifts in performance

consistent with the patterns of stereotype threat and stereotype boost (Ambady et al 2001 and

Afridi Li and Ren 2010) However other studies do not find evidence of stereotype threat (eg

Fryer Levitt and List 2008) When stereotype threat occurs results in neuroscience support the

13

view that the stereotype is a powerful distractor in the task that subjects are trying to accomplish

In Krendl et al (2008) women taking a math test in conditions of stereotype threat did not

recruit the neural regions associated with mathematical learning but instead showed heightened

activation in a neural region associated with social and emotional processing Neuroscientists

also find that early environmental exposure can affect the chemistry of the DNA with a long-

term effect on onersquos responses to stress (Begley 2007 and Pollak 2008) Children who have a

history of exposure to stressful events react more strongly to stress We conjecture that for a

low-caste child who has encountered stressful events related to his caste identity increasing the

salience of caste is a source of stress In contrast a high-caste child because of his early

experiences may find comfort and power in contexts in which his caste identity is salient

3 Participants and Design

288 high-caste (hereafter H) and 294 low-caste (hereafter L) in 6th

or 7th

grade in the district of

Hardoi in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh participated in the study Hardoi was under feudal

rule in the 19th

century and the feudal elite was made up of the high castes A legacy of feudal

rule is greater high-caste dominance compared to regions of Uttar Pradesh not under such rule

(Pandey 2010) Thus the site of our experiment is a relatively high-caste dominant district of a

region of India (the North) in which caste divisions run deep

In the experiment participants in groups of six solved mazes in a classroom The six

boys in a session were generally recruited from six different villages but since this was not

always the case we will control for the number of other participants that a participant knew

Participants were brought to the experiment site by car Just before entering the car each

participant was asked in private his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and

caste On arriving at the site we verified in private with each participant his name and caste

14

before randomly assigning him to a treatment

Three conditions varied the salience of caste in the session which was always led by a

high-caste young female experimenter

Caste Not Revealed (the control condition) A session was composed of 3 H and 3 L No

personal information about the participants was revealed

Revealed Mixed (ie caste revealed in a mixed-caste session) The composition of a

session was the same as in the preceding condition but now the experimenter began a

session by saying that she would like to confirm some information with each participant

who should nod if it is correct Then the experimenter turned to each participant and

stated his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and caste

Revealed Segregated (ie caste revealed in a segregated session) This was the same as

the preceding condition except that a session was composed of either 6 H or 6 L

The priming mechanism reflects a way in which caste identity is actually made salient in

classroom settings This increases the external validity of our results Although an individualrsquos

caste is widely known in a village publicly referring to a childrsquos caste is not uncommon in rural

schools There is anecdotal evidence of teachers telling low-caste children to not drink from the

tap at the school lest it pollute the water for others While implementing this study we came

across some such instances Caste is commonly recorded in school enrollment books often

using different colors for high and low castes to identify caste-targeted entitlements such as

stipends and uniforms provided by state governments In villages people are frequently called

by their caste names Following the common usage in this area and the way that caste is

recorded in school enrollment books we used the traditional name for each caste (Thakur

Chamar etc) in revealing caste identity6

6 In the 1998-99 Indian National Family Health Survey households were asked to name their caste Most low-caste

respondents gave their actual caste name (eg Chamar) but a few used the more generic and politically correct

names Dalit harijan or Scheduled Caste (Marriott 2003)

15

We next describe the incentive schemes Participants were given a packet of 15 mazes to

solve in each of two 15-minute rounds7 Some participants had piece-rate incentives in both

rounds (the ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) others had piece-rate incentives in round 1 and tournament

incentives in round 2 (the ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the piece-rate scheme a participant earned

one rupee per maze solved Under the tournament scheme he earned six rupees per maze solved

if he solved the most mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing In case of a tie both

winners received the prize The tournament provided high-powered incentives a winner could

(and some did) earn 15 x 6 rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages

Figure 1 gives the organization of the experiment Experimental conditions were

identical in the first round of treatments (1) and (4) (2) and (5) and (3) and (6) and so we will

pool them when reporting first-round results

Figure 1 Experiment Design

Note PP means that the piece rate incentive applies in both rounds of maze-solving PT means that the piece rate

incentive applies in round 1 and the tournament incentive applies in round 2

7 The mazes are Xerox copies from httpgamesyahoocomgamesmazehtml level 3 Gneezy Niederle and

Rustichini (2003) showed that individuals do not solve mazes just for fun they respond to incentives

10

behave The individual likes conforming to the ideals of that category and dislikes actions by

others that deviate from the ideals

An individual may be able to choose his social identities ie he can define himself and

his relationships to others at a categorical level (Akerlof and Kranton 2002 Fang and Loury

2005 Hoff and Sen 2006 and Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Sen 2006 Munshi and Wilson

2008) For example a descendant of Irish immigrants to the US can define himself as Irish-

American or not The individualrsquos choice problem makes sense only under the assumption that

an individual has a meta-utility function However just as in the two theories above an

individual has well-defined preferences that provide all the information that is relevant for

describing his choices and outcomes for a given set of opportunities

The Frame-Dependent Self

The other broad class of theories draws on a certain view of how the mind works

namely that information is processed in relation to mental models (references are in Tversky

and Kahneman 1983 and an elaboration is in DiMaggio 1997) Individuals have multiple mental

models they may not be consistent and they are situationally evoked

An experiment from Tversky and Kahneman illustrates the powerful effect of cues on

cognition A group of subjects are asked How many seven-letter words of which the sixth letter

is ldquoNrdquo (_ _ _ _ _ N _) would you expect to find in four pages of a novel (about 2000 words)

The same group of subjects are also asked How many seven-letter words of which the last three

letters are ldquoINGrdquo (_ _ _ _ ING) would you expect to find in four pages of a novel (about 2000

words) The median estimate is several times greater for ING words than for _N_ words The

11

responses violate logic but can be explained this way _ING words are a standard category (a

very simple mental structure) _N_ words are not and categories shape how we think5

There is substantial evidence that the setting in which alternatives are offered affects

choices and that one mechanism underlying this influence is that the setting evokes a particular

mental model or aspect of the self For example in the studies of Benjamin et al (2010)

LeBeouf et al (2010) and Cohn et al (2013) individuals were randomly assigned to fill out

background questionnaires that either included questions related to an aspect of their identities or

that did not A questionnaire that primed Asian identity made Asian-Americans more

cooperative and patient a questionnaire that primed a family-oriented identity strengthened

values related to family obligations and a questionnaire that primed the prisoner identity of

prison inmates led them to cheat more Even the language of thought affects behavior studies

with bilingual students find that randomly directing them to use one or the other of their two

languages shifts their implicit attitudes and behavior (Danziger and Ward 2010 and Ogunnaike et

al 2010) In the study of Lambarraa et al (2012) which also uses bilingual subjects the

language of thought in the period before the subject has to make a choice influences his

behavior Since the decision-making situation is exactly the same but only the prior language

has changed it is clear that context has changed not what it is objectively appropriate to do but

instead the way that the subject evaluates his choices The effect of context on behavior is

analogous to the effect of the environment on the expression of an individualrsquos genes DNA are

the instructions for making an individual but as yet poorly understood features of the

environment determine the on-and-off states of genes (See Salant and Rubinstein 2008 for a

model of frame-dependent utility)

5 A second example is that the distinctions between colors in the language one speaks influence the speed with

which one can perceive distinct colors See Alter (2013 ch 2) for a popular lively account of the influence of

categories on cognition

12

The idea of an extended utility function is interesting when it leads to the observation of

inconsistent choices Of course if we knew all the stimuli to the individual then the theory of

rationality (ie consistency) would be trivial Since we do not observe all stimuli and our

understanding of how individuals process information is limited it becomes a useful construct to

posit multiple preferences one for each self-construal or worldview

Useful for what purpose It may be useful for understanding long-run social change

which entails changes in the set of possible identities the salience of particular identities and the

possible ways of understanding a situation In the process of economic development the stimuli

to an individual can change in a way that leads to the expression of one set of preferences rather

than another that is preferences depend on context and frames

Finally an influential body of evidence in psychology on stereotype threat (and to a

lesser extent stereotype boost) relates to the influence of context on human productivity In

experiments over many domains (eg SATs and sports) priming a negatively or positively

stereotyped aspect of an individualrsquos identity shifts performance in the direction of the

stereotype for instance African-Americans do worse on scholastic aptitude tests if before the

test they are asked to check a box for their race (Steele and Aronson 1995) Asian-American

women if the Asian aspect of identity is made salient do better on math tests than women in the

no-prime condition but if their gender is made salient do worse than women in the no-prime

condition (Shih Pittinsky and Ambady 1999) Children in both lower elementary grades and

middle school grades (but not those in upper elementary grades) show shifts in performance

consistent with the patterns of stereotype threat and stereotype boost (Ambady et al 2001 and

Afridi Li and Ren 2010) However other studies do not find evidence of stereotype threat (eg

Fryer Levitt and List 2008) When stereotype threat occurs results in neuroscience support the

13

view that the stereotype is a powerful distractor in the task that subjects are trying to accomplish

In Krendl et al (2008) women taking a math test in conditions of stereotype threat did not

recruit the neural regions associated with mathematical learning but instead showed heightened

activation in a neural region associated with social and emotional processing Neuroscientists

also find that early environmental exposure can affect the chemistry of the DNA with a long-

term effect on onersquos responses to stress (Begley 2007 and Pollak 2008) Children who have a

history of exposure to stressful events react more strongly to stress We conjecture that for a

low-caste child who has encountered stressful events related to his caste identity increasing the

salience of caste is a source of stress In contrast a high-caste child because of his early

experiences may find comfort and power in contexts in which his caste identity is salient

3 Participants and Design

288 high-caste (hereafter H) and 294 low-caste (hereafter L) in 6th

or 7th

grade in the district of

Hardoi in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh participated in the study Hardoi was under feudal

rule in the 19th

century and the feudal elite was made up of the high castes A legacy of feudal

rule is greater high-caste dominance compared to regions of Uttar Pradesh not under such rule

(Pandey 2010) Thus the site of our experiment is a relatively high-caste dominant district of a

region of India (the North) in which caste divisions run deep

In the experiment participants in groups of six solved mazes in a classroom The six

boys in a session were generally recruited from six different villages but since this was not

always the case we will control for the number of other participants that a participant knew

Participants were brought to the experiment site by car Just before entering the car each

participant was asked in private his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and

caste On arriving at the site we verified in private with each participant his name and caste

14

before randomly assigning him to a treatment

Three conditions varied the salience of caste in the session which was always led by a

high-caste young female experimenter

Caste Not Revealed (the control condition) A session was composed of 3 H and 3 L No

personal information about the participants was revealed

Revealed Mixed (ie caste revealed in a mixed-caste session) The composition of a

session was the same as in the preceding condition but now the experimenter began a

session by saying that she would like to confirm some information with each participant

who should nod if it is correct Then the experimenter turned to each participant and

stated his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and caste

Revealed Segregated (ie caste revealed in a segregated session) This was the same as

the preceding condition except that a session was composed of either 6 H or 6 L

The priming mechanism reflects a way in which caste identity is actually made salient in

classroom settings This increases the external validity of our results Although an individualrsquos

caste is widely known in a village publicly referring to a childrsquos caste is not uncommon in rural

schools There is anecdotal evidence of teachers telling low-caste children to not drink from the

tap at the school lest it pollute the water for others While implementing this study we came

across some such instances Caste is commonly recorded in school enrollment books often

using different colors for high and low castes to identify caste-targeted entitlements such as

stipends and uniforms provided by state governments In villages people are frequently called

by their caste names Following the common usage in this area and the way that caste is

recorded in school enrollment books we used the traditional name for each caste (Thakur

Chamar etc) in revealing caste identity6

6 In the 1998-99 Indian National Family Health Survey households were asked to name their caste Most low-caste

respondents gave their actual caste name (eg Chamar) but a few used the more generic and politically correct

names Dalit harijan or Scheduled Caste (Marriott 2003)

15

We next describe the incentive schemes Participants were given a packet of 15 mazes to

solve in each of two 15-minute rounds7 Some participants had piece-rate incentives in both

rounds (the ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) others had piece-rate incentives in round 1 and tournament

incentives in round 2 (the ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the piece-rate scheme a participant earned

one rupee per maze solved Under the tournament scheme he earned six rupees per maze solved

if he solved the most mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing In case of a tie both

winners received the prize The tournament provided high-powered incentives a winner could

(and some did) earn 15 x 6 rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages

Figure 1 gives the organization of the experiment Experimental conditions were

identical in the first round of treatments (1) and (4) (2) and (5) and (3) and (6) and so we will

pool them when reporting first-round results

Figure 1 Experiment Design

Note PP means that the piece rate incentive applies in both rounds of maze-solving PT means that the piece rate

incentive applies in round 1 and the tournament incentive applies in round 2

7 The mazes are Xerox copies from httpgamesyahoocomgamesmazehtml level 3 Gneezy Niederle and

Rustichini (2003) showed that individuals do not solve mazes just for fun they respond to incentives

11

responses violate logic but can be explained this way _ING words are a standard category (a

very simple mental structure) _N_ words are not and categories shape how we think5

There is substantial evidence that the setting in which alternatives are offered affects

choices and that one mechanism underlying this influence is that the setting evokes a particular

mental model or aspect of the self For example in the studies of Benjamin et al (2010)

LeBeouf et al (2010) and Cohn et al (2013) individuals were randomly assigned to fill out

background questionnaires that either included questions related to an aspect of their identities or

that did not A questionnaire that primed Asian identity made Asian-Americans more

cooperative and patient a questionnaire that primed a family-oriented identity strengthened

values related to family obligations and a questionnaire that primed the prisoner identity of

prison inmates led them to cheat more Even the language of thought affects behavior studies

with bilingual students find that randomly directing them to use one or the other of their two

languages shifts their implicit attitudes and behavior (Danziger and Ward 2010 and Ogunnaike et

al 2010) In the study of Lambarraa et al (2012) which also uses bilingual subjects the

language of thought in the period before the subject has to make a choice influences his

behavior Since the decision-making situation is exactly the same but only the prior language

has changed it is clear that context has changed not what it is objectively appropriate to do but

instead the way that the subject evaluates his choices The effect of context on behavior is

analogous to the effect of the environment on the expression of an individualrsquos genes DNA are

the instructions for making an individual but as yet poorly understood features of the

environment determine the on-and-off states of genes (See Salant and Rubinstein 2008 for a

model of frame-dependent utility)

5 A second example is that the distinctions between colors in the language one speaks influence the speed with

which one can perceive distinct colors See Alter (2013 ch 2) for a popular lively account of the influence of

categories on cognition

12

The idea of an extended utility function is interesting when it leads to the observation of

inconsistent choices Of course if we knew all the stimuli to the individual then the theory of

rationality (ie consistency) would be trivial Since we do not observe all stimuli and our

understanding of how individuals process information is limited it becomes a useful construct to

posit multiple preferences one for each self-construal or worldview

Useful for what purpose It may be useful for understanding long-run social change

which entails changes in the set of possible identities the salience of particular identities and the

possible ways of understanding a situation In the process of economic development the stimuli

to an individual can change in a way that leads to the expression of one set of preferences rather

than another that is preferences depend on context and frames

Finally an influential body of evidence in psychology on stereotype threat (and to a

lesser extent stereotype boost) relates to the influence of context on human productivity In

experiments over many domains (eg SATs and sports) priming a negatively or positively

stereotyped aspect of an individualrsquos identity shifts performance in the direction of the

stereotype for instance African-Americans do worse on scholastic aptitude tests if before the

test they are asked to check a box for their race (Steele and Aronson 1995) Asian-American

women if the Asian aspect of identity is made salient do better on math tests than women in the

no-prime condition but if their gender is made salient do worse than women in the no-prime

condition (Shih Pittinsky and Ambady 1999) Children in both lower elementary grades and

middle school grades (but not those in upper elementary grades) show shifts in performance

consistent with the patterns of stereotype threat and stereotype boost (Ambady et al 2001 and

Afridi Li and Ren 2010) However other studies do not find evidence of stereotype threat (eg

Fryer Levitt and List 2008) When stereotype threat occurs results in neuroscience support the

13

view that the stereotype is a powerful distractor in the task that subjects are trying to accomplish

In Krendl et al (2008) women taking a math test in conditions of stereotype threat did not

recruit the neural regions associated with mathematical learning but instead showed heightened

activation in a neural region associated with social and emotional processing Neuroscientists

also find that early environmental exposure can affect the chemistry of the DNA with a long-

term effect on onersquos responses to stress (Begley 2007 and Pollak 2008) Children who have a

history of exposure to stressful events react more strongly to stress We conjecture that for a

low-caste child who has encountered stressful events related to his caste identity increasing the

salience of caste is a source of stress In contrast a high-caste child because of his early

experiences may find comfort and power in contexts in which his caste identity is salient

3 Participants and Design

288 high-caste (hereafter H) and 294 low-caste (hereafter L) in 6th

or 7th

grade in the district of

Hardoi in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh participated in the study Hardoi was under feudal

rule in the 19th

century and the feudal elite was made up of the high castes A legacy of feudal

rule is greater high-caste dominance compared to regions of Uttar Pradesh not under such rule

(Pandey 2010) Thus the site of our experiment is a relatively high-caste dominant district of a

region of India (the North) in which caste divisions run deep

In the experiment participants in groups of six solved mazes in a classroom The six

boys in a session were generally recruited from six different villages but since this was not

always the case we will control for the number of other participants that a participant knew

Participants were brought to the experiment site by car Just before entering the car each

participant was asked in private his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and

caste On arriving at the site we verified in private with each participant his name and caste

14

before randomly assigning him to a treatment

Three conditions varied the salience of caste in the session which was always led by a

high-caste young female experimenter

Caste Not Revealed (the control condition) A session was composed of 3 H and 3 L No

personal information about the participants was revealed

Revealed Mixed (ie caste revealed in a mixed-caste session) The composition of a

session was the same as in the preceding condition but now the experimenter began a

session by saying that she would like to confirm some information with each participant

who should nod if it is correct Then the experimenter turned to each participant and

stated his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and caste

Revealed Segregated (ie caste revealed in a segregated session) This was the same as

the preceding condition except that a session was composed of either 6 H or 6 L

The priming mechanism reflects a way in which caste identity is actually made salient in

classroom settings This increases the external validity of our results Although an individualrsquos

caste is widely known in a village publicly referring to a childrsquos caste is not uncommon in rural

schools There is anecdotal evidence of teachers telling low-caste children to not drink from the

tap at the school lest it pollute the water for others While implementing this study we came

across some such instances Caste is commonly recorded in school enrollment books often

using different colors for high and low castes to identify caste-targeted entitlements such as

stipends and uniforms provided by state governments In villages people are frequently called

by their caste names Following the common usage in this area and the way that caste is

recorded in school enrollment books we used the traditional name for each caste (Thakur

Chamar etc) in revealing caste identity6

6 In the 1998-99 Indian National Family Health Survey households were asked to name their caste Most low-caste

respondents gave their actual caste name (eg Chamar) but a few used the more generic and politically correct

names Dalit harijan or Scheduled Caste (Marriott 2003)

15

We next describe the incentive schemes Participants were given a packet of 15 mazes to

solve in each of two 15-minute rounds7 Some participants had piece-rate incentives in both

rounds (the ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) others had piece-rate incentives in round 1 and tournament

incentives in round 2 (the ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the piece-rate scheme a participant earned

one rupee per maze solved Under the tournament scheme he earned six rupees per maze solved

if he solved the most mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing In case of a tie both

winners received the prize The tournament provided high-powered incentives a winner could

(and some did) earn 15 x 6 rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages

Figure 1 gives the organization of the experiment Experimental conditions were

identical in the first round of treatments (1) and (4) (2) and (5) and (3) and (6) and so we will

pool them when reporting first-round results

Figure 1 Experiment Design

Note PP means that the piece rate incentive applies in both rounds of maze-solving PT means that the piece rate

incentive applies in round 1 and the tournament incentive applies in round 2

7 The mazes are Xerox copies from httpgamesyahoocomgamesmazehtml level 3 Gneezy Niederle and

Rustichini (2003) showed that individuals do not solve mazes just for fun they respond to incentives

12

The idea of an extended utility function is interesting when it leads to the observation of

inconsistent choices Of course if we knew all the stimuli to the individual then the theory of

rationality (ie consistency) would be trivial Since we do not observe all stimuli and our

understanding of how individuals process information is limited it becomes a useful construct to

posit multiple preferences one for each self-construal or worldview

Useful for what purpose It may be useful for understanding long-run social change

which entails changes in the set of possible identities the salience of particular identities and the

possible ways of understanding a situation In the process of economic development the stimuli

to an individual can change in a way that leads to the expression of one set of preferences rather

than another that is preferences depend on context and frames

Finally an influential body of evidence in psychology on stereotype threat (and to a

lesser extent stereotype boost) relates to the influence of context on human productivity In

experiments over many domains (eg SATs and sports) priming a negatively or positively

stereotyped aspect of an individualrsquos identity shifts performance in the direction of the

stereotype for instance African-Americans do worse on scholastic aptitude tests if before the

test they are asked to check a box for their race (Steele and Aronson 1995) Asian-American

women if the Asian aspect of identity is made salient do better on math tests than women in the

no-prime condition but if their gender is made salient do worse than women in the no-prime

condition (Shih Pittinsky and Ambady 1999) Children in both lower elementary grades and

middle school grades (but not those in upper elementary grades) show shifts in performance

consistent with the patterns of stereotype threat and stereotype boost (Ambady et al 2001 and

Afridi Li and Ren 2010) However other studies do not find evidence of stereotype threat (eg

Fryer Levitt and List 2008) When stereotype threat occurs results in neuroscience support the

13

view that the stereotype is a powerful distractor in the task that subjects are trying to accomplish

In Krendl et al (2008) women taking a math test in conditions of stereotype threat did not

recruit the neural regions associated with mathematical learning but instead showed heightened

activation in a neural region associated with social and emotional processing Neuroscientists

also find that early environmental exposure can affect the chemistry of the DNA with a long-

term effect on onersquos responses to stress (Begley 2007 and Pollak 2008) Children who have a

history of exposure to stressful events react more strongly to stress We conjecture that for a

low-caste child who has encountered stressful events related to his caste identity increasing the

salience of caste is a source of stress In contrast a high-caste child because of his early

experiences may find comfort and power in contexts in which his caste identity is salient

3 Participants and Design

288 high-caste (hereafter H) and 294 low-caste (hereafter L) in 6th

or 7th

grade in the district of

Hardoi in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh participated in the study Hardoi was under feudal

rule in the 19th

century and the feudal elite was made up of the high castes A legacy of feudal

rule is greater high-caste dominance compared to regions of Uttar Pradesh not under such rule

(Pandey 2010) Thus the site of our experiment is a relatively high-caste dominant district of a

region of India (the North) in which caste divisions run deep

In the experiment participants in groups of six solved mazes in a classroom The six

boys in a session were generally recruited from six different villages but since this was not

always the case we will control for the number of other participants that a participant knew

Participants were brought to the experiment site by car Just before entering the car each

participant was asked in private his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and

caste On arriving at the site we verified in private with each participant his name and caste

14

before randomly assigning him to a treatment

Three conditions varied the salience of caste in the session which was always led by a

high-caste young female experimenter

Caste Not Revealed (the control condition) A session was composed of 3 H and 3 L No

personal information about the participants was revealed

Revealed Mixed (ie caste revealed in a mixed-caste session) The composition of a

session was the same as in the preceding condition but now the experimenter began a

session by saying that she would like to confirm some information with each participant

who should nod if it is correct Then the experimenter turned to each participant and

stated his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and caste

Revealed Segregated (ie caste revealed in a segregated session) This was the same as

the preceding condition except that a session was composed of either 6 H or 6 L

The priming mechanism reflects a way in which caste identity is actually made salient in

classroom settings This increases the external validity of our results Although an individualrsquos

caste is widely known in a village publicly referring to a childrsquos caste is not uncommon in rural

schools There is anecdotal evidence of teachers telling low-caste children to not drink from the

tap at the school lest it pollute the water for others While implementing this study we came

across some such instances Caste is commonly recorded in school enrollment books often

using different colors for high and low castes to identify caste-targeted entitlements such as

stipends and uniforms provided by state governments In villages people are frequently called

by their caste names Following the common usage in this area and the way that caste is

recorded in school enrollment books we used the traditional name for each caste (Thakur

Chamar etc) in revealing caste identity6

6 In the 1998-99 Indian National Family Health Survey households were asked to name their caste Most low-caste

respondents gave their actual caste name (eg Chamar) but a few used the more generic and politically correct

names Dalit harijan or Scheduled Caste (Marriott 2003)

15

We next describe the incentive schemes Participants were given a packet of 15 mazes to

solve in each of two 15-minute rounds7 Some participants had piece-rate incentives in both

rounds (the ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) others had piece-rate incentives in round 1 and tournament

incentives in round 2 (the ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the piece-rate scheme a participant earned

one rupee per maze solved Under the tournament scheme he earned six rupees per maze solved

if he solved the most mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing In case of a tie both

winners received the prize The tournament provided high-powered incentives a winner could

(and some did) earn 15 x 6 rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages

Figure 1 gives the organization of the experiment Experimental conditions were

identical in the first round of treatments (1) and (4) (2) and (5) and (3) and (6) and so we will

pool them when reporting first-round results

Figure 1 Experiment Design

Note PP means that the piece rate incentive applies in both rounds of maze-solving PT means that the piece rate

incentive applies in round 1 and the tournament incentive applies in round 2

7 The mazes are Xerox copies from httpgamesyahoocomgamesmazehtml level 3 Gneezy Niederle and

Rustichini (2003) showed that individuals do not solve mazes just for fun they respond to incentives

13

view that the stereotype is a powerful distractor in the task that subjects are trying to accomplish

In Krendl et al (2008) women taking a math test in conditions of stereotype threat did not

recruit the neural regions associated with mathematical learning but instead showed heightened

activation in a neural region associated with social and emotional processing Neuroscientists

also find that early environmental exposure can affect the chemistry of the DNA with a long-

term effect on onersquos responses to stress (Begley 2007 and Pollak 2008) Children who have a

history of exposure to stressful events react more strongly to stress We conjecture that for a

low-caste child who has encountered stressful events related to his caste identity increasing the

salience of caste is a source of stress In contrast a high-caste child because of his early

experiences may find comfort and power in contexts in which his caste identity is salient

3 Participants and Design

288 high-caste (hereafter H) and 294 low-caste (hereafter L) in 6th

or 7th

grade in the district of

Hardoi in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh participated in the study Hardoi was under feudal

rule in the 19th

century and the feudal elite was made up of the high castes A legacy of feudal

rule is greater high-caste dominance compared to regions of Uttar Pradesh not under such rule

(Pandey 2010) Thus the site of our experiment is a relatively high-caste dominant district of a

region of India (the North) in which caste divisions run deep

In the experiment participants in groups of six solved mazes in a classroom The six

boys in a session were generally recruited from six different villages but since this was not

always the case we will control for the number of other participants that a participant knew

Participants were brought to the experiment site by car Just before entering the car each

participant was asked in private his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and

caste On arriving at the site we verified in private with each participant his name and caste

14

before randomly assigning him to a treatment

Three conditions varied the salience of caste in the session which was always led by a

high-caste young female experimenter

Caste Not Revealed (the control condition) A session was composed of 3 H and 3 L No

personal information about the participants was revealed

Revealed Mixed (ie caste revealed in a mixed-caste session) The composition of a

session was the same as in the preceding condition but now the experimenter began a

session by saying that she would like to confirm some information with each participant

who should nod if it is correct Then the experimenter turned to each participant and

stated his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and caste

Revealed Segregated (ie caste revealed in a segregated session) This was the same as

the preceding condition except that a session was composed of either 6 H or 6 L

The priming mechanism reflects a way in which caste identity is actually made salient in

classroom settings This increases the external validity of our results Although an individualrsquos

caste is widely known in a village publicly referring to a childrsquos caste is not uncommon in rural

schools There is anecdotal evidence of teachers telling low-caste children to not drink from the

tap at the school lest it pollute the water for others While implementing this study we came

across some such instances Caste is commonly recorded in school enrollment books often

using different colors for high and low castes to identify caste-targeted entitlements such as

stipends and uniforms provided by state governments In villages people are frequently called

by their caste names Following the common usage in this area and the way that caste is

recorded in school enrollment books we used the traditional name for each caste (Thakur

Chamar etc) in revealing caste identity6

6 In the 1998-99 Indian National Family Health Survey households were asked to name their caste Most low-caste

respondents gave their actual caste name (eg Chamar) but a few used the more generic and politically correct

names Dalit harijan or Scheduled Caste (Marriott 2003)

15

We next describe the incentive schemes Participants were given a packet of 15 mazes to

solve in each of two 15-minute rounds7 Some participants had piece-rate incentives in both

rounds (the ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) others had piece-rate incentives in round 1 and tournament

incentives in round 2 (the ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the piece-rate scheme a participant earned

one rupee per maze solved Under the tournament scheme he earned six rupees per maze solved

if he solved the most mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing In case of a tie both

winners received the prize The tournament provided high-powered incentives a winner could

(and some did) earn 15 x 6 rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages

Figure 1 gives the organization of the experiment Experimental conditions were

identical in the first round of treatments (1) and (4) (2) and (5) and (3) and (6) and so we will

pool them when reporting first-round results

Figure 1 Experiment Design

Note PP means that the piece rate incentive applies in both rounds of maze-solving PT means that the piece rate

incentive applies in round 1 and the tournament incentive applies in round 2

7 The mazes are Xerox copies from httpgamesyahoocomgamesmazehtml level 3 Gneezy Niederle and

Rustichini (2003) showed that individuals do not solve mazes just for fun they respond to incentives

14

before randomly assigning him to a treatment

Three conditions varied the salience of caste in the session which was always led by a

high-caste young female experimenter

Caste Not Revealed (the control condition) A session was composed of 3 H and 3 L No

personal information about the participants was revealed

Revealed Mixed (ie caste revealed in a mixed-caste session) The composition of a

session was the same as in the preceding condition but now the experimenter began a

session by saying that she would like to confirm some information with each participant

who should nod if it is correct Then the experimenter turned to each participant and

stated his name village name fatherrsquos name grandfatherrsquos name and caste

Revealed Segregated (ie caste revealed in a segregated session) This was the same as

the preceding condition except that a session was composed of either 6 H or 6 L

The priming mechanism reflects a way in which caste identity is actually made salient in

classroom settings This increases the external validity of our results Although an individualrsquos

caste is widely known in a village publicly referring to a childrsquos caste is not uncommon in rural

schools There is anecdotal evidence of teachers telling low-caste children to not drink from the

tap at the school lest it pollute the water for others While implementing this study we came

across some such instances Caste is commonly recorded in school enrollment books often

using different colors for high and low castes to identify caste-targeted entitlements such as

stipends and uniforms provided by state governments In villages people are frequently called

by their caste names Following the common usage in this area and the way that caste is

recorded in school enrollment books we used the traditional name for each caste (Thakur

Chamar etc) in revealing caste identity6

6 In the 1998-99 Indian National Family Health Survey households were asked to name their caste Most low-caste

respondents gave their actual caste name (eg Chamar) but a few used the more generic and politically correct

names Dalit harijan or Scheduled Caste (Marriott 2003)

15

We next describe the incentive schemes Participants were given a packet of 15 mazes to

solve in each of two 15-minute rounds7 Some participants had piece-rate incentives in both

rounds (the ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) others had piece-rate incentives in round 1 and tournament

incentives in round 2 (the ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the piece-rate scheme a participant earned

one rupee per maze solved Under the tournament scheme he earned six rupees per maze solved

if he solved the most mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing In case of a tie both

winners received the prize The tournament provided high-powered incentives a winner could

(and some did) earn 15 x 6 rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages

Figure 1 gives the organization of the experiment Experimental conditions were

identical in the first round of treatments (1) and (4) (2) and (5) and (3) and (6) and so we will

pool them when reporting first-round results

Figure 1 Experiment Design

Note PP means that the piece rate incentive applies in both rounds of maze-solving PT means that the piece rate

incentive applies in round 1 and the tournament incentive applies in round 2

7 The mazes are Xerox copies from httpgamesyahoocomgamesmazehtml level 3 Gneezy Niederle and

Rustichini (2003) showed that individuals do not solve mazes just for fun they respond to incentives

15

We next describe the incentive schemes Participants were given a packet of 15 mazes to

solve in each of two 15-minute rounds7 Some participants had piece-rate incentives in both

rounds (the ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) others had piece-rate incentives in round 1 and tournament

incentives in round 2 (the ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the piece-rate scheme a participant earned

one rupee per maze solved Under the tournament scheme he earned six rupees per maze solved

if he solved the most mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing In case of a tie both

winners received the prize The tournament provided high-powered incentives a winner could

(and some did) earn 15 x 6 rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages

Figure 1 gives the organization of the experiment Experimental conditions were

identical in the first round of treatments (1) and (4) (2) and (5) and (3) and (6) and so we will

pool them when reporting first-round results

Figure 1 Experiment Design

Note PP means that the piece rate incentive applies in both rounds of maze-solving PT means that the piece rate

incentive applies in round 1 and the tournament incentive applies in round 2

7 The mazes are Xerox copies from httpgamesyahoocomgamesmazehtml level 3 Gneezy Niederle and

Rustichini (2003) showed that individuals do not solve mazes just for fun they respond to incentives

16

Recruitment We conducted the experiment in January and March 2003 and in March

2005 In January 2003 on days that schools were open we went to public schools near the site

of the experiment and chose high- and low-caste children for each day after pooling the

enrollment data for all nearby public schools A letter from the District Magistrate instructed the

teachers to cooperate with our team On days that schools were closed we visited homes in

nearby villages each evening to ask parentsrsquo permission to pick up their children the next day to

drive them to the junior high school that served as the site of the experiment In only rare

instances did parents refuse to let their children participate In March 2003 and March 2005 to

choose the subjects every day our team went to six randomly selected villages within a 20-

kilometer radius of the experiment site From each village we drew an equal number of high-

caste and low-caste children At most ten participants came from a single village nearly always

an equal number of H and L On each day we recruited participants from a new set of villages

Implementation On arrival at the experiment site participants waited in silence in a

large common room A research assistant provided each child a snack When the cars bringing

the participants for the morning or afternoon sessions had all arrived the participants were

directed in groups of six to a new set of classrooms where they remained for the rest of the

experiment They were not told anything about how or why the particular groups were formed

We next describe what took place during an experimental session which lasted about 70

minutes Under the Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated conditions but not in the control

the experimenter began a session by making public the identity of the participants as described

above After that all sessions proceeded in the same way The experimenter told the

participants that they would ldquotake part in two games of solving puzzlesrdquo She gave participants

the show-up fee of 10 rupees and described how to solve a maze in this way

17

hellipthere is one child The child has to go to the ball The solution is a path that takes the

child to the ball The black lines are walls The child cannot cross a wall

She gave participants five minutes to practice with an additional maze She explained that for

each maze they solved participants would receive an additional one rupee She checked to make

sure each child understood the incentive scheme She said that the incentive payments ldquowill be

given to every child in an envelope after the games are overrdquo Then she told the participants that

they would have 15 minutes to solve a packet of mazes and the first round of maze-solving

began

After the first round and without giving feedback on performance she explained that

there would be one more round of solving mazes explained the incentive scheme (piece rate or

tournament) and checked that each child understood it In a post-play survey participants gave

information about their background in private Mazes were graded blind Participants received

their earnings in sealed envelopes and were then taken home

Predictions Under piece rates the payoff to a participant depends on only his own

actions Therefore the theories of the fixed self would predict that increasing the salience of

caste would have no effect on behavior In contrast the theories of the frame-dependent self

would predict that increasing the salience of caste could evoke for a low-caste individual the

mental model in which Dalits are accepted only so long as they stay ldquoin their placerdquo which

would reduce the utility from high achievement and thus reduce performance For a high-caste

individual in contrast the prediction of the theories of the frame-dependent self is ambiguous

On the one hand making him more aware of his caste should if anything enhance his desire to

conform to the ideal of a high-caste person which is to be superior On the other hand making

caste more salient could evoke a mental model in which he has less need to achieve because he

has an entitlement to status In addition under the theory of stereotype threat or boost making

18

caste more salient may entail a negative productivity shock to L and a positive productivity

shock to Hmdashsee Figure 2

Figure 2 Predicted Effects of Increasing the Salience of Caste under Piece Rate Incentives

Theory Predicted effect of increasing caste salience on the performance of

High caste Low caste

The Fixed Self

Individuals have well-defined preferences

that are always salient

None

None

The Frame-Dependent Self

Increasing an individualrsquos awareness of an

aspect of his identity may cue a mental model

Individuals have multiple sets of preferences

one for each mental model Cues to a

negatively stereotyped identity can also

impair the ability to perform

Ambiguousmdash

Cueing an identity whose norm

is to be superior increases the

utility from achievement which

improves performance but

evoking a worldview in which

life chances depend less on

effort than on caste impairs

performance

Declinesmdash

Making a low-caste person

more aware of his caste (i)

evokes a worldview in which it

is a norm violation for him to

excel and (ii) may trigger

stereotype threat

4 Descriptive Statistics

In this section we describe the participantsrsquo characteristics and broadly summarize the results8

Table 1 shows that parents of H have much greater education than parents of L For simplicity

the table groups together Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated as the ldquoidentity conditionsrdquo

The table shows that 45 of all H compared to 12 of all L have a mother with at least six years

of schooling (These are weighted averages across conditions calculated using Figure 1) Both

parents are illiterate among only 5 of H compared to 28 of L Only 8 of H have fathers

8 In each time period in which we conducted the experiment (January and March 2003 and March 2005) we held at

least six sessions under PP incentives in the control condition As shown in Web Appendix Table S1 there were no

significant differences in output by time period Therefore we pool the data across the three time periods We also

found no experimenter effects on the number of mazes solved per round

19

who are day laborers compared to 18 in the case of L These differences highlight the need to

examine whether the correlates of caste can explain the differences between H and L in our

results We can do that because the distribution of parentsrsquo characteristics for H shares a

common support with that for L For example there are not only L who have mothers with no

schooling there are also H whose mothers have no schooling We collected data on two other

variables in the post-play survey exposure to mazes and the number of other participants in a

session that a subject knows

Table 1 shows that the randomization between the control and identity conditions was

largely successful However in the identity conditions participants have parents with a

significantly higher level of education and are significantly more likely to have had some

exposure to mazes These differences should if anything improve performance in the identity

conditions compared to the control An effect that goes the other way is that the low caste is on

average slightly more likely to be in 6th

than 7th

grade in the identity conditions9 We control for

these factors in the analysis and all results described in Section 1 are robust to these controls In

9 Unlike for L the randomization in terms of grade in school is perfect for H across control and identity treatments

For L the mean grade in school is 653 for control (Caste Not Revealed) and 634 for the identity treatments and this

difference is significant as Table 1 shows Further disaggregating the data by treatment reveals that the problem of

imbalance in grade for L lies with the control versus all other treatments and that this is not so in the case of H For

H for piece rate conditions the means for grade in school (with standard deviations in parentheses) are 653 (050)

for Caste Not Revealed 653 (050) for Revealed Mixed and 669 (047) for Revealed Segregated For the

tournament conditions the means are 647 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 644 (050) for Revealed Mixed and 643

(050) for Revealed Segregated On the other hand for L while there is little difference in the mean grade in school

among the four identity treatments the mean grade for Caste Not Revealed is higher For L for piece rate

conditions the means are 657 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 637 (048) for Revealed Mixed and 630 (046) for

Revealed Segregated For the tournament conditions the means are 643 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 630 (046)

for Revealed Mixed and 639 (049) for Revealed Segregated

20

particular the results that the low caste underperforms when caste is revealed are robust to

controlling for grade in school

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for Participants

High caste

Low caste

Caste Not

Revealed

Identity

conditions

Caste Not

Revealed

Identity

conditions

Motherrsquos education

None 32 25

75 68

Years ϵ (06) 26 29

17 17

At least 6 years 42 46

8 15

Fatherrsquos education

None 6 6

26 31

Years ϵ (06) 7 13

22 19

At least 6 years 86 81

52 50

Both parents illiterate 7 4

26 29

4 7

7 5

Mother works outside

the home

8 9 16 19 Father is a day laborer

Grade in school 651 651 653 634

Previous exposure to

mazes 7 15

4 16

Mean number of other

participants known 055 114 056 103

Note This table looks at the balance between treatments in which caste identity is revealed (ldquoIdentity

conditionsrdquo) and those in which it is not Except for the last row the characteristics reported in this table

are binary For example ldquoboth parents illiteraterdquo =1 if both parents have no formal education and

otherwise it is zero ldquoprevious exposure to mazes beforerdquo =1 if the subject had seen mazes before and

otherwise it is zero and grade in school is equal to either 6th or 7th For binary variables the tests of

equality of means across conditions for the high caste are based on logit regressions one for each

characteristic and similarly for the low caste For ldquomean number of other participants knownrdquo the test of

equality of means is based on a t-test denotes rejection of the equality of means for the control and

identity conditions at p lt 005

21

Figure 3 shows the average number of mazes solved by H The figure is divided into

three blocks Block 1 is round 1 block 2 is round 2-piece rate and block 3 is round 2-

tournament In each block H output is lowest in Revealed Segregated Under the Mann-

Whitney U-test the differences between Revealed Segregated and the control are significant at p

lt 05 in all blocks In block 2 average output is higher in Revealed Mixed than in the control

but the difference is not significant

Figure 3 Average Output of High-Caste Participants

Note Brackets indicate differences between treatments with 95 confidence based on the Mann-

Whitney U-test

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

22

Figure 4 superimposes on Figure 3 the average outputs of L All three blocks show that

when caste is not revealed the average output of H is almost the same as that of L However

when caste is made public the performance declines for L are generally steeper than those for H

A significant caste gap emerges in Revealed Mixed in both rounds

Figure 4 Average Output of High-Caste and Low-Caste Participants

Note Vertical lines indicate caste gaps that are statistically significant based on the Mann-Whitney test

with 95 confidence

Figure 5 shows how the identity conditions impair L relative to H performance at the top

of the performance distribution The figure reports the ratio of L participants to all participants

with output at or above each decile in round 2 (If H and L were equally represented in each

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

High Caste

Low Caste

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

23

decile and if varying caste salience had the same effect on H and L then all points in the figure

would lie along the horizontal line at 05 ie in any cut of the distribution the proportion of L

participants would be one-half) The figure shows that if the top 10 percent of participants were

selected based on their performance in the control (Caste Not Revealed) L would be in the

majority But if selection was based on performance in Piece rate or Tournament Revealed

Mixed L would be in the minority And if selection was based on performance in Piece rate

Revealed Segregated it would result in an equal representation of H and L Thus whether H or

L are overrepresented in the top decile depends on the context in which the boys perform

Figure 5 Proportion of the Low Caste above each Performance Decile in Round 2

(Cumulative)

Note There is in general more than one participant whose performance ranks him at the border between

two deciles To explain the adjustment we make for this case we use an example Let n(20) = the

number of L in decile 20 n(30) = the number of L in decile 30 and n(b) = the number of L at the border

0

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Pro

po

rtio

n

Decile (10 is top decile)

Tournament Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Revealed Segregated

Tournament Revealed Mixed

Piece rate Revealed Mixed

Tournament Revealed Segregated

24

between deciles 20 and 30 Finally denote an L whose performance ranks him at the border between

these two deciles as a border person Lb Consider a case where n(20) = 2 n(30) = 1 and n(b) = 3 How

do we allocate the three border persons We allocate them so that the proportion of border persons in

decile 20 is equal to the ratio n(b)[n(20)+n(30) + n(b)] = 05 and the proportion of border persons in

decile 30 is also equal to this ratio Thus we allocate 2 border persons to decile 20 and the remaining

border person to decile 30 After the allocation decile 20 has 2L + 2Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos

in the decile is 5 as required And decile 30 has 1L + 1Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos in the decile is

also 5 as required Intuitively since there are twice as many Lrsquos in decile 20 as in decile 30 we allocate

twice as many border persons to decile 20 as to decile 30 For H the procedure is analogous

_____________________

5 Measuring Treatment Effects

51 Number of Mazes SolvedmdashFull Sample

We find patterns similar to those in Figure 4 in regressions that control for individual and family

characteristics We pool all the observations and allow for interactions among caste context

and incentives Table 2 columns (1)-(4) report OLS estimates with robust standard errors

clustered at the individual level for the following specification

Mazes solved in a round = α + ω(round is 2) + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (1)

+ (subject is Hsession cues identity) + τ(Tournament) + λ (Tournamentsubject is H) +

ξ(Tournamentsession cues identity) + θ(Tournamentsubject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z is a vector of individual and family characteristics The term α measures the predicted

output in the omitted case an L in Piece rate control in round 1 The next eight coefficients

(from ω to θ) measure the effects of round caste and treatments and the two-way and three-way

interactions10

10 For example γ is a vector that measures the difference for L between an identity condition (Revealed Mixed or

Revealed Segregated) and the control under piece rate incentives Using a subscript s for Revealed Segregated α +

ω + γs is the predicted output of L in round 2 of Revealed Segregated under piece rate incentives The predicted

output of H in Revealed Segregated under tournament incentives is α + ω + β + γs + s + τ + λ + ξs + θs

25

One result is immediate Low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste boys

when caste is not revealed The estimated coefficients on H and TH are always very small and

insignificant We get sensible results for round 2 and grade in school both factors significantly

improve round performance in every specification

Specification (1) uses only caste and treatment indicators Specification (2) adds controls

for individual characteristics grade in school previous exposure to mazes and number of other

participants known in a session Specification (3) adds controls for family characteristics In

this section we will analyze the results under the piece rate incentive we will analyze the results

under the tournament incentive in the Appendix

Between specifications (1) and (2) there is only one change in the set of significant

treatment effects the output decline by L in Revealed Mixed is no longer significant Table 3

reports the treatment effects in the first two columns The treatment effects of Revealed Mixed

for each caste (016 for H and -058 for L) are individually insignificant but jointly produce a

significant caste gap in favor of H The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed

Segregated is a significant decline of -093 mazes for both H and L This effect is roughly

double the effect on output of being in 6th

instead of 7th

grade (= -043 as shown in Table 2)

In order to check whether the channel through which social identity influences

behavior is classmdasha poor-versus-rich effect on performance as in Croizet and Claire (1998)mdash

rather than caste we next consider the effect of controls for family characteristics In Table 2

column (3) we control for parentsrsquo education motherrsquos employment outside the home and

fatherrsquos employment as a day laborer Because stigma is associated with daily wage-labor

our post-play survey did not ask ldquoIs your father a day laborerrdquo Instead the survey asked

about the fatherrsquos occupation We formed a binary variable for daily wage labor based on the

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

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Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

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Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

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Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

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Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

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Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

17

hellipthere is one child The child has to go to the ball The solution is a path that takes the

child to the ball The black lines are walls The child cannot cross a wall

She gave participants five minutes to practice with an additional maze She explained that for

each maze they solved participants would receive an additional one rupee She checked to make

sure each child understood the incentive scheme She said that the incentive payments ldquowill be

given to every child in an envelope after the games are overrdquo Then she told the participants that

they would have 15 minutes to solve a packet of mazes and the first round of maze-solving

began

After the first round and without giving feedback on performance she explained that

there would be one more round of solving mazes explained the incentive scheme (piece rate or

tournament) and checked that each child understood it In a post-play survey participants gave

information about their background in private Mazes were graded blind Participants received

their earnings in sealed envelopes and were then taken home

Predictions Under piece rates the payoff to a participant depends on only his own

actions Therefore the theories of the fixed self would predict that increasing the salience of

caste would have no effect on behavior In contrast the theories of the frame-dependent self

would predict that increasing the salience of caste could evoke for a low-caste individual the

mental model in which Dalits are accepted only so long as they stay ldquoin their placerdquo which

would reduce the utility from high achievement and thus reduce performance For a high-caste

individual in contrast the prediction of the theories of the frame-dependent self is ambiguous

On the one hand making him more aware of his caste should if anything enhance his desire to

conform to the ideal of a high-caste person which is to be superior On the other hand making

caste more salient could evoke a mental model in which he has less need to achieve because he

has an entitlement to status In addition under the theory of stereotype threat or boost making

18

caste more salient may entail a negative productivity shock to L and a positive productivity

shock to Hmdashsee Figure 2

Figure 2 Predicted Effects of Increasing the Salience of Caste under Piece Rate Incentives

Theory Predicted effect of increasing caste salience on the performance of

High caste Low caste

The Fixed Self

Individuals have well-defined preferences

that are always salient

None

None

The Frame-Dependent Self

Increasing an individualrsquos awareness of an

aspect of his identity may cue a mental model

Individuals have multiple sets of preferences

one for each mental model Cues to a

negatively stereotyped identity can also

impair the ability to perform

Ambiguousmdash

Cueing an identity whose norm

is to be superior increases the

utility from achievement which

improves performance but

evoking a worldview in which

life chances depend less on

effort than on caste impairs

performance

Declinesmdash

Making a low-caste person

more aware of his caste (i)

evokes a worldview in which it

is a norm violation for him to

excel and (ii) may trigger

stereotype threat

4 Descriptive Statistics

In this section we describe the participantsrsquo characteristics and broadly summarize the results8

Table 1 shows that parents of H have much greater education than parents of L For simplicity

the table groups together Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated as the ldquoidentity conditionsrdquo

The table shows that 45 of all H compared to 12 of all L have a mother with at least six years

of schooling (These are weighted averages across conditions calculated using Figure 1) Both

parents are illiterate among only 5 of H compared to 28 of L Only 8 of H have fathers

8 In each time period in which we conducted the experiment (January and March 2003 and March 2005) we held at

least six sessions under PP incentives in the control condition As shown in Web Appendix Table S1 there were no

significant differences in output by time period Therefore we pool the data across the three time periods We also

found no experimenter effects on the number of mazes solved per round

19

who are day laborers compared to 18 in the case of L These differences highlight the need to

examine whether the correlates of caste can explain the differences between H and L in our

results We can do that because the distribution of parentsrsquo characteristics for H shares a

common support with that for L For example there are not only L who have mothers with no

schooling there are also H whose mothers have no schooling We collected data on two other

variables in the post-play survey exposure to mazes and the number of other participants in a

session that a subject knows

Table 1 shows that the randomization between the control and identity conditions was

largely successful However in the identity conditions participants have parents with a

significantly higher level of education and are significantly more likely to have had some

exposure to mazes These differences should if anything improve performance in the identity

conditions compared to the control An effect that goes the other way is that the low caste is on

average slightly more likely to be in 6th

than 7th

grade in the identity conditions9 We control for

these factors in the analysis and all results described in Section 1 are robust to these controls In

9 Unlike for L the randomization in terms of grade in school is perfect for H across control and identity treatments

For L the mean grade in school is 653 for control (Caste Not Revealed) and 634 for the identity treatments and this

difference is significant as Table 1 shows Further disaggregating the data by treatment reveals that the problem of

imbalance in grade for L lies with the control versus all other treatments and that this is not so in the case of H For

H for piece rate conditions the means for grade in school (with standard deviations in parentheses) are 653 (050)

for Caste Not Revealed 653 (050) for Revealed Mixed and 669 (047) for Revealed Segregated For the

tournament conditions the means are 647 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 644 (050) for Revealed Mixed and 643

(050) for Revealed Segregated On the other hand for L while there is little difference in the mean grade in school

among the four identity treatments the mean grade for Caste Not Revealed is higher For L for piece rate

conditions the means are 657 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 637 (048) for Revealed Mixed and 630 (046) for

Revealed Segregated For the tournament conditions the means are 643 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 630 (046)

for Revealed Mixed and 639 (049) for Revealed Segregated

20

particular the results that the low caste underperforms when caste is revealed are robust to

controlling for grade in school

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for Participants

High caste

Low caste

Caste Not

Revealed

Identity

conditions

Caste Not

Revealed

Identity

conditions

Motherrsquos education

None 32 25

75 68

Years ϵ (06) 26 29

17 17

At least 6 years 42 46

8 15

Fatherrsquos education

None 6 6

26 31

Years ϵ (06) 7 13

22 19

At least 6 years 86 81

52 50

Both parents illiterate 7 4

26 29

4 7

7 5

Mother works outside

the home

8 9 16 19 Father is a day laborer

Grade in school 651 651 653 634

Previous exposure to

mazes 7 15

4 16

Mean number of other

participants known 055 114 056 103

Note This table looks at the balance between treatments in which caste identity is revealed (ldquoIdentity

conditionsrdquo) and those in which it is not Except for the last row the characteristics reported in this table

are binary For example ldquoboth parents illiteraterdquo =1 if both parents have no formal education and

otherwise it is zero ldquoprevious exposure to mazes beforerdquo =1 if the subject had seen mazes before and

otherwise it is zero and grade in school is equal to either 6th or 7th For binary variables the tests of

equality of means across conditions for the high caste are based on logit regressions one for each

characteristic and similarly for the low caste For ldquomean number of other participants knownrdquo the test of

equality of means is based on a t-test denotes rejection of the equality of means for the control and

identity conditions at p lt 005

21

Figure 3 shows the average number of mazes solved by H The figure is divided into

three blocks Block 1 is round 1 block 2 is round 2-piece rate and block 3 is round 2-

tournament In each block H output is lowest in Revealed Segregated Under the Mann-

Whitney U-test the differences between Revealed Segregated and the control are significant at p

lt 05 in all blocks In block 2 average output is higher in Revealed Mixed than in the control

but the difference is not significant

Figure 3 Average Output of High-Caste Participants

Note Brackets indicate differences between treatments with 95 confidence based on the Mann-

Whitney U-test

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

22

Figure 4 superimposes on Figure 3 the average outputs of L All three blocks show that

when caste is not revealed the average output of H is almost the same as that of L However

when caste is made public the performance declines for L are generally steeper than those for H

A significant caste gap emerges in Revealed Mixed in both rounds

Figure 4 Average Output of High-Caste and Low-Caste Participants

Note Vertical lines indicate caste gaps that are statistically significant based on the Mann-Whitney test

with 95 confidence

Figure 5 shows how the identity conditions impair L relative to H performance at the top

of the performance distribution The figure reports the ratio of L participants to all participants

with output at or above each decile in round 2 (If H and L were equally represented in each

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

High Caste

Low Caste

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

23

decile and if varying caste salience had the same effect on H and L then all points in the figure

would lie along the horizontal line at 05 ie in any cut of the distribution the proportion of L

participants would be one-half) The figure shows that if the top 10 percent of participants were

selected based on their performance in the control (Caste Not Revealed) L would be in the

majority But if selection was based on performance in Piece rate or Tournament Revealed

Mixed L would be in the minority And if selection was based on performance in Piece rate

Revealed Segregated it would result in an equal representation of H and L Thus whether H or

L are overrepresented in the top decile depends on the context in which the boys perform

Figure 5 Proportion of the Low Caste above each Performance Decile in Round 2

(Cumulative)

Note There is in general more than one participant whose performance ranks him at the border between

two deciles To explain the adjustment we make for this case we use an example Let n(20) = the

number of L in decile 20 n(30) = the number of L in decile 30 and n(b) = the number of L at the border

0

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Pro

po

rtio

n

Decile (10 is top decile)

Tournament Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Revealed Segregated

Tournament Revealed Mixed

Piece rate Revealed Mixed

Tournament Revealed Segregated

24

between deciles 20 and 30 Finally denote an L whose performance ranks him at the border between

these two deciles as a border person Lb Consider a case where n(20) = 2 n(30) = 1 and n(b) = 3 How

do we allocate the three border persons We allocate them so that the proportion of border persons in

decile 20 is equal to the ratio n(b)[n(20)+n(30) + n(b)] = 05 and the proportion of border persons in

decile 30 is also equal to this ratio Thus we allocate 2 border persons to decile 20 and the remaining

border person to decile 30 After the allocation decile 20 has 2L + 2Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos

in the decile is 5 as required And decile 30 has 1L + 1Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos in the decile is

also 5 as required Intuitively since there are twice as many Lrsquos in decile 20 as in decile 30 we allocate

twice as many border persons to decile 20 as to decile 30 For H the procedure is analogous

_____________________

5 Measuring Treatment Effects

51 Number of Mazes SolvedmdashFull Sample

We find patterns similar to those in Figure 4 in regressions that control for individual and family

characteristics We pool all the observations and allow for interactions among caste context

and incentives Table 2 columns (1)-(4) report OLS estimates with robust standard errors

clustered at the individual level for the following specification

Mazes solved in a round = α + ω(round is 2) + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (1)

+ (subject is Hsession cues identity) + τ(Tournament) + λ (Tournamentsubject is H) +

ξ(Tournamentsession cues identity) + θ(Tournamentsubject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z is a vector of individual and family characteristics The term α measures the predicted

output in the omitted case an L in Piece rate control in round 1 The next eight coefficients

(from ω to θ) measure the effects of round caste and treatments and the two-way and three-way

interactions10

10 For example γ is a vector that measures the difference for L between an identity condition (Revealed Mixed or

Revealed Segregated) and the control under piece rate incentives Using a subscript s for Revealed Segregated α +

ω + γs is the predicted output of L in round 2 of Revealed Segregated under piece rate incentives The predicted

output of H in Revealed Segregated under tournament incentives is α + ω + β + γs + s + τ + λ + ξs + θs

25

One result is immediate Low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste boys

when caste is not revealed The estimated coefficients on H and TH are always very small and

insignificant We get sensible results for round 2 and grade in school both factors significantly

improve round performance in every specification

Specification (1) uses only caste and treatment indicators Specification (2) adds controls

for individual characteristics grade in school previous exposure to mazes and number of other

participants known in a session Specification (3) adds controls for family characteristics In

this section we will analyze the results under the piece rate incentive we will analyze the results

under the tournament incentive in the Appendix

Between specifications (1) and (2) there is only one change in the set of significant

treatment effects the output decline by L in Revealed Mixed is no longer significant Table 3

reports the treatment effects in the first two columns The treatment effects of Revealed Mixed

for each caste (016 for H and -058 for L) are individually insignificant but jointly produce a

significant caste gap in favor of H The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed

Segregated is a significant decline of -093 mazes for both H and L This effect is roughly

double the effect on output of being in 6th

instead of 7th

grade (= -043 as shown in Table 2)

In order to check whether the channel through which social identity influences

behavior is classmdasha poor-versus-rich effect on performance as in Croizet and Claire (1998)mdash

rather than caste we next consider the effect of controls for family characteristics In Table 2

column (3) we control for parentsrsquo education motherrsquos employment outside the home and

fatherrsquos employment as a day laborer Because stigma is associated with daily wage-labor

our post-play survey did not ask ldquoIs your father a day laborerrdquo Instead the survey asked

about the fatherrsquos occupation We formed a binary variable for daily wage labor based on the

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

18

caste more salient may entail a negative productivity shock to L and a positive productivity

shock to Hmdashsee Figure 2

Figure 2 Predicted Effects of Increasing the Salience of Caste under Piece Rate Incentives

Theory Predicted effect of increasing caste salience on the performance of

High caste Low caste

The Fixed Self

Individuals have well-defined preferences

that are always salient

None

None

The Frame-Dependent Self

Increasing an individualrsquos awareness of an

aspect of his identity may cue a mental model

Individuals have multiple sets of preferences

one for each mental model Cues to a

negatively stereotyped identity can also

impair the ability to perform

Ambiguousmdash

Cueing an identity whose norm

is to be superior increases the

utility from achievement which

improves performance but

evoking a worldview in which

life chances depend less on

effort than on caste impairs

performance

Declinesmdash

Making a low-caste person

more aware of his caste (i)

evokes a worldview in which it

is a norm violation for him to

excel and (ii) may trigger

stereotype threat

4 Descriptive Statistics

In this section we describe the participantsrsquo characteristics and broadly summarize the results8

Table 1 shows that parents of H have much greater education than parents of L For simplicity

the table groups together Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated as the ldquoidentity conditionsrdquo

The table shows that 45 of all H compared to 12 of all L have a mother with at least six years

of schooling (These are weighted averages across conditions calculated using Figure 1) Both

parents are illiterate among only 5 of H compared to 28 of L Only 8 of H have fathers

8 In each time period in which we conducted the experiment (January and March 2003 and March 2005) we held at

least six sessions under PP incentives in the control condition As shown in Web Appendix Table S1 there were no

significant differences in output by time period Therefore we pool the data across the three time periods We also

found no experimenter effects on the number of mazes solved per round

19

who are day laborers compared to 18 in the case of L These differences highlight the need to

examine whether the correlates of caste can explain the differences between H and L in our

results We can do that because the distribution of parentsrsquo characteristics for H shares a

common support with that for L For example there are not only L who have mothers with no

schooling there are also H whose mothers have no schooling We collected data on two other

variables in the post-play survey exposure to mazes and the number of other participants in a

session that a subject knows

Table 1 shows that the randomization between the control and identity conditions was

largely successful However in the identity conditions participants have parents with a

significantly higher level of education and are significantly more likely to have had some

exposure to mazes These differences should if anything improve performance in the identity

conditions compared to the control An effect that goes the other way is that the low caste is on

average slightly more likely to be in 6th

than 7th

grade in the identity conditions9 We control for

these factors in the analysis and all results described in Section 1 are robust to these controls In

9 Unlike for L the randomization in terms of grade in school is perfect for H across control and identity treatments

For L the mean grade in school is 653 for control (Caste Not Revealed) and 634 for the identity treatments and this

difference is significant as Table 1 shows Further disaggregating the data by treatment reveals that the problem of

imbalance in grade for L lies with the control versus all other treatments and that this is not so in the case of H For

H for piece rate conditions the means for grade in school (with standard deviations in parentheses) are 653 (050)

for Caste Not Revealed 653 (050) for Revealed Mixed and 669 (047) for Revealed Segregated For the

tournament conditions the means are 647 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 644 (050) for Revealed Mixed and 643

(050) for Revealed Segregated On the other hand for L while there is little difference in the mean grade in school

among the four identity treatments the mean grade for Caste Not Revealed is higher For L for piece rate

conditions the means are 657 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 637 (048) for Revealed Mixed and 630 (046) for

Revealed Segregated For the tournament conditions the means are 643 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 630 (046)

for Revealed Mixed and 639 (049) for Revealed Segregated

20

particular the results that the low caste underperforms when caste is revealed are robust to

controlling for grade in school

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for Participants

High caste

Low caste

Caste Not

Revealed

Identity

conditions

Caste Not

Revealed

Identity

conditions

Motherrsquos education

None 32 25

75 68

Years ϵ (06) 26 29

17 17

At least 6 years 42 46

8 15

Fatherrsquos education

None 6 6

26 31

Years ϵ (06) 7 13

22 19

At least 6 years 86 81

52 50

Both parents illiterate 7 4

26 29

4 7

7 5

Mother works outside

the home

8 9 16 19 Father is a day laborer

Grade in school 651 651 653 634

Previous exposure to

mazes 7 15

4 16

Mean number of other

participants known 055 114 056 103

Note This table looks at the balance between treatments in which caste identity is revealed (ldquoIdentity

conditionsrdquo) and those in which it is not Except for the last row the characteristics reported in this table

are binary For example ldquoboth parents illiteraterdquo =1 if both parents have no formal education and

otherwise it is zero ldquoprevious exposure to mazes beforerdquo =1 if the subject had seen mazes before and

otherwise it is zero and grade in school is equal to either 6th or 7th For binary variables the tests of

equality of means across conditions for the high caste are based on logit regressions one for each

characteristic and similarly for the low caste For ldquomean number of other participants knownrdquo the test of

equality of means is based on a t-test denotes rejection of the equality of means for the control and

identity conditions at p lt 005

21

Figure 3 shows the average number of mazes solved by H The figure is divided into

three blocks Block 1 is round 1 block 2 is round 2-piece rate and block 3 is round 2-

tournament In each block H output is lowest in Revealed Segregated Under the Mann-

Whitney U-test the differences between Revealed Segregated and the control are significant at p

lt 05 in all blocks In block 2 average output is higher in Revealed Mixed than in the control

but the difference is not significant

Figure 3 Average Output of High-Caste Participants

Note Brackets indicate differences between treatments with 95 confidence based on the Mann-

Whitney U-test

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

22

Figure 4 superimposes on Figure 3 the average outputs of L All three blocks show that

when caste is not revealed the average output of H is almost the same as that of L However

when caste is made public the performance declines for L are generally steeper than those for H

A significant caste gap emerges in Revealed Mixed in both rounds

Figure 4 Average Output of High-Caste and Low-Caste Participants

Note Vertical lines indicate caste gaps that are statistically significant based on the Mann-Whitney test

with 95 confidence

Figure 5 shows how the identity conditions impair L relative to H performance at the top

of the performance distribution The figure reports the ratio of L participants to all participants

with output at or above each decile in round 2 (If H and L were equally represented in each

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

High Caste

Low Caste

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

23

decile and if varying caste salience had the same effect on H and L then all points in the figure

would lie along the horizontal line at 05 ie in any cut of the distribution the proportion of L

participants would be one-half) The figure shows that if the top 10 percent of participants were

selected based on their performance in the control (Caste Not Revealed) L would be in the

majority But if selection was based on performance in Piece rate or Tournament Revealed

Mixed L would be in the minority And if selection was based on performance in Piece rate

Revealed Segregated it would result in an equal representation of H and L Thus whether H or

L are overrepresented in the top decile depends on the context in which the boys perform

Figure 5 Proportion of the Low Caste above each Performance Decile in Round 2

(Cumulative)

Note There is in general more than one participant whose performance ranks him at the border between

two deciles To explain the adjustment we make for this case we use an example Let n(20) = the

number of L in decile 20 n(30) = the number of L in decile 30 and n(b) = the number of L at the border

0

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Pro

po

rtio

n

Decile (10 is top decile)

Tournament Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Revealed Segregated

Tournament Revealed Mixed

Piece rate Revealed Mixed

Tournament Revealed Segregated

24

between deciles 20 and 30 Finally denote an L whose performance ranks him at the border between

these two deciles as a border person Lb Consider a case where n(20) = 2 n(30) = 1 and n(b) = 3 How

do we allocate the three border persons We allocate them so that the proportion of border persons in

decile 20 is equal to the ratio n(b)[n(20)+n(30) + n(b)] = 05 and the proportion of border persons in

decile 30 is also equal to this ratio Thus we allocate 2 border persons to decile 20 and the remaining

border person to decile 30 After the allocation decile 20 has 2L + 2Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos

in the decile is 5 as required And decile 30 has 1L + 1Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos in the decile is

also 5 as required Intuitively since there are twice as many Lrsquos in decile 20 as in decile 30 we allocate

twice as many border persons to decile 20 as to decile 30 For H the procedure is analogous

_____________________

5 Measuring Treatment Effects

51 Number of Mazes SolvedmdashFull Sample

We find patterns similar to those in Figure 4 in regressions that control for individual and family

characteristics We pool all the observations and allow for interactions among caste context

and incentives Table 2 columns (1)-(4) report OLS estimates with robust standard errors

clustered at the individual level for the following specification

Mazes solved in a round = α + ω(round is 2) + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (1)

+ (subject is Hsession cues identity) + τ(Tournament) + λ (Tournamentsubject is H) +

ξ(Tournamentsession cues identity) + θ(Tournamentsubject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z is a vector of individual and family characteristics The term α measures the predicted

output in the omitted case an L in Piece rate control in round 1 The next eight coefficients

(from ω to θ) measure the effects of round caste and treatments and the two-way and three-way

interactions10

10 For example γ is a vector that measures the difference for L between an identity condition (Revealed Mixed or

Revealed Segregated) and the control under piece rate incentives Using a subscript s for Revealed Segregated α +

ω + γs is the predicted output of L in round 2 of Revealed Segregated under piece rate incentives The predicted

output of H in Revealed Segregated under tournament incentives is α + ω + β + γs + s + τ + λ + ξs + θs

25

One result is immediate Low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste boys

when caste is not revealed The estimated coefficients on H and TH are always very small and

insignificant We get sensible results for round 2 and grade in school both factors significantly

improve round performance in every specification

Specification (1) uses only caste and treatment indicators Specification (2) adds controls

for individual characteristics grade in school previous exposure to mazes and number of other

participants known in a session Specification (3) adds controls for family characteristics In

this section we will analyze the results under the piece rate incentive we will analyze the results

under the tournament incentive in the Appendix

Between specifications (1) and (2) there is only one change in the set of significant

treatment effects the output decline by L in Revealed Mixed is no longer significant Table 3

reports the treatment effects in the first two columns The treatment effects of Revealed Mixed

for each caste (016 for H and -058 for L) are individually insignificant but jointly produce a

significant caste gap in favor of H The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed

Segregated is a significant decline of -093 mazes for both H and L This effect is roughly

double the effect on output of being in 6th

instead of 7th

grade (= -043 as shown in Table 2)

In order to check whether the channel through which social identity influences

behavior is classmdasha poor-versus-rich effect on performance as in Croizet and Claire (1998)mdash

rather than caste we next consider the effect of controls for family characteristics In Table 2

column (3) we control for parentsrsquo education motherrsquos employment outside the home and

fatherrsquos employment as a day laborer Because stigma is associated with daily wage-labor

our post-play survey did not ask ldquoIs your father a day laborerrdquo Instead the survey asked

about the fatherrsquos occupation We formed a binary variable for daily wage labor based on the

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

References

Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

19

who are day laborers compared to 18 in the case of L These differences highlight the need to

examine whether the correlates of caste can explain the differences between H and L in our

results We can do that because the distribution of parentsrsquo characteristics for H shares a

common support with that for L For example there are not only L who have mothers with no

schooling there are also H whose mothers have no schooling We collected data on two other

variables in the post-play survey exposure to mazes and the number of other participants in a

session that a subject knows

Table 1 shows that the randomization between the control and identity conditions was

largely successful However in the identity conditions participants have parents with a

significantly higher level of education and are significantly more likely to have had some

exposure to mazes These differences should if anything improve performance in the identity

conditions compared to the control An effect that goes the other way is that the low caste is on

average slightly more likely to be in 6th

than 7th

grade in the identity conditions9 We control for

these factors in the analysis and all results described in Section 1 are robust to these controls In

9 Unlike for L the randomization in terms of grade in school is perfect for H across control and identity treatments

For L the mean grade in school is 653 for control (Caste Not Revealed) and 634 for the identity treatments and this

difference is significant as Table 1 shows Further disaggregating the data by treatment reveals that the problem of

imbalance in grade for L lies with the control versus all other treatments and that this is not so in the case of H For

H for piece rate conditions the means for grade in school (with standard deviations in parentheses) are 653 (050)

for Caste Not Revealed 653 (050) for Revealed Mixed and 669 (047) for Revealed Segregated For the

tournament conditions the means are 647 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 644 (050) for Revealed Mixed and 643

(050) for Revealed Segregated On the other hand for L while there is little difference in the mean grade in school

among the four identity treatments the mean grade for Caste Not Revealed is higher For L for piece rate

conditions the means are 657 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 637 (048) for Revealed Mixed and 630 (046) for

Revealed Segregated For the tournament conditions the means are 643 (050) for Caste Not Revealed 630 (046)

for Revealed Mixed and 639 (049) for Revealed Segregated

20

particular the results that the low caste underperforms when caste is revealed are robust to

controlling for grade in school

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for Participants

High caste

Low caste

Caste Not

Revealed

Identity

conditions

Caste Not

Revealed

Identity

conditions

Motherrsquos education

None 32 25

75 68

Years ϵ (06) 26 29

17 17

At least 6 years 42 46

8 15

Fatherrsquos education

None 6 6

26 31

Years ϵ (06) 7 13

22 19

At least 6 years 86 81

52 50

Both parents illiterate 7 4

26 29

4 7

7 5

Mother works outside

the home

8 9 16 19 Father is a day laborer

Grade in school 651 651 653 634

Previous exposure to

mazes 7 15

4 16

Mean number of other

participants known 055 114 056 103

Note This table looks at the balance between treatments in which caste identity is revealed (ldquoIdentity

conditionsrdquo) and those in which it is not Except for the last row the characteristics reported in this table

are binary For example ldquoboth parents illiteraterdquo =1 if both parents have no formal education and

otherwise it is zero ldquoprevious exposure to mazes beforerdquo =1 if the subject had seen mazes before and

otherwise it is zero and grade in school is equal to either 6th or 7th For binary variables the tests of

equality of means across conditions for the high caste are based on logit regressions one for each

characteristic and similarly for the low caste For ldquomean number of other participants knownrdquo the test of

equality of means is based on a t-test denotes rejection of the equality of means for the control and

identity conditions at p lt 005

21

Figure 3 shows the average number of mazes solved by H The figure is divided into

three blocks Block 1 is round 1 block 2 is round 2-piece rate and block 3 is round 2-

tournament In each block H output is lowest in Revealed Segregated Under the Mann-

Whitney U-test the differences between Revealed Segregated and the control are significant at p

lt 05 in all blocks In block 2 average output is higher in Revealed Mixed than in the control

but the difference is not significant

Figure 3 Average Output of High-Caste Participants

Note Brackets indicate differences between treatments with 95 confidence based on the Mann-

Whitney U-test

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

22

Figure 4 superimposes on Figure 3 the average outputs of L All three blocks show that

when caste is not revealed the average output of H is almost the same as that of L However

when caste is made public the performance declines for L are generally steeper than those for H

A significant caste gap emerges in Revealed Mixed in both rounds

Figure 4 Average Output of High-Caste and Low-Caste Participants

Note Vertical lines indicate caste gaps that are statistically significant based on the Mann-Whitney test

with 95 confidence

Figure 5 shows how the identity conditions impair L relative to H performance at the top

of the performance distribution The figure reports the ratio of L participants to all participants

with output at or above each decile in round 2 (If H and L were equally represented in each

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

High Caste

Low Caste

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

23

decile and if varying caste salience had the same effect on H and L then all points in the figure

would lie along the horizontal line at 05 ie in any cut of the distribution the proportion of L

participants would be one-half) The figure shows that if the top 10 percent of participants were

selected based on their performance in the control (Caste Not Revealed) L would be in the

majority But if selection was based on performance in Piece rate or Tournament Revealed

Mixed L would be in the minority And if selection was based on performance in Piece rate

Revealed Segregated it would result in an equal representation of H and L Thus whether H or

L are overrepresented in the top decile depends on the context in which the boys perform

Figure 5 Proportion of the Low Caste above each Performance Decile in Round 2

(Cumulative)

Note There is in general more than one participant whose performance ranks him at the border between

two deciles To explain the adjustment we make for this case we use an example Let n(20) = the

number of L in decile 20 n(30) = the number of L in decile 30 and n(b) = the number of L at the border

0

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Pro

po

rtio

n

Decile (10 is top decile)

Tournament Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Revealed Segregated

Tournament Revealed Mixed

Piece rate Revealed Mixed

Tournament Revealed Segregated

24

between deciles 20 and 30 Finally denote an L whose performance ranks him at the border between

these two deciles as a border person Lb Consider a case where n(20) = 2 n(30) = 1 and n(b) = 3 How

do we allocate the three border persons We allocate them so that the proportion of border persons in

decile 20 is equal to the ratio n(b)[n(20)+n(30) + n(b)] = 05 and the proportion of border persons in

decile 30 is also equal to this ratio Thus we allocate 2 border persons to decile 20 and the remaining

border person to decile 30 After the allocation decile 20 has 2L + 2Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos

in the decile is 5 as required And decile 30 has 1L + 1Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos in the decile is

also 5 as required Intuitively since there are twice as many Lrsquos in decile 20 as in decile 30 we allocate

twice as many border persons to decile 20 as to decile 30 For H the procedure is analogous

_____________________

5 Measuring Treatment Effects

51 Number of Mazes SolvedmdashFull Sample

We find patterns similar to those in Figure 4 in regressions that control for individual and family

characteristics We pool all the observations and allow for interactions among caste context

and incentives Table 2 columns (1)-(4) report OLS estimates with robust standard errors

clustered at the individual level for the following specification

Mazes solved in a round = α + ω(round is 2) + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (1)

+ (subject is Hsession cues identity) + τ(Tournament) + λ (Tournamentsubject is H) +

ξ(Tournamentsession cues identity) + θ(Tournamentsubject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z is a vector of individual and family characteristics The term α measures the predicted

output in the omitted case an L in Piece rate control in round 1 The next eight coefficients

(from ω to θ) measure the effects of round caste and treatments and the two-way and three-way

interactions10

10 For example γ is a vector that measures the difference for L between an identity condition (Revealed Mixed or

Revealed Segregated) and the control under piece rate incentives Using a subscript s for Revealed Segregated α +

ω + γs is the predicted output of L in round 2 of Revealed Segregated under piece rate incentives The predicted

output of H in Revealed Segregated under tournament incentives is α + ω + β + γs + s + τ + λ + ξs + θs

25

One result is immediate Low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste boys

when caste is not revealed The estimated coefficients on H and TH are always very small and

insignificant We get sensible results for round 2 and grade in school both factors significantly

improve round performance in every specification

Specification (1) uses only caste and treatment indicators Specification (2) adds controls

for individual characteristics grade in school previous exposure to mazes and number of other

participants known in a session Specification (3) adds controls for family characteristics In

this section we will analyze the results under the piece rate incentive we will analyze the results

under the tournament incentive in the Appendix

Between specifications (1) and (2) there is only one change in the set of significant

treatment effects the output decline by L in Revealed Mixed is no longer significant Table 3

reports the treatment effects in the first two columns The treatment effects of Revealed Mixed

for each caste (016 for H and -058 for L) are individually insignificant but jointly produce a

significant caste gap in favor of H The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed

Segregated is a significant decline of -093 mazes for both H and L This effect is roughly

double the effect on output of being in 6th

instead of 7th

grade (= -043 as shown in Table 2)

In order to check whether the channel through which social identity influences

behavior is classmdasha poor-versus-rich effect on performance as in Croizet and Claire (1998)mdash

rather than caste we next consider the effect of controls for family characteristics In Table 2

column (3) we control for parentsrsquo education motherrsquos employment outside the home and

fatherrsquos employment as a day laborer Because stigma is associated with daily wage-labor

our post-play survey did not ask ldquoIs your father a day laborerrdquo Instead the survey asked

about the fatherrsquos occupation We formed a binary variable for daily wage labor based on the

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

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Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

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Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

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Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

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Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

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Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

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42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

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Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

20

particular the results that the low caste underperforms when caste is revealed are robust to

controlling for grade in school

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for Participants

High caste

Low caste

Caste Not

Revealed

Identity

conditions

Caste Not

Revealed

Identity

conditions

Motherrsquos education

None 32 25

75 68

Years ϵ (06) 26 29

17 17

At least 6 years 42 46

8 15

Fatherrsquos education

None 6 6

26 31

Years ϵ (06) 7 13

22 19

At least 6 years 86 81

52 50

Both parents illiterate 7 4

26 29

4 7

7 5

Mother works outside

the home

8 9 16 19 Father is a day laborer

Grade in school 651 651 653 634

Previous exposure to

mazes 7 15

4 16

Mean number of other

participants known 055 114 056 103

Note This table looks at the balance between treatments in which caste identity is revealed (ldquoIdentity

conditionsrdquo) and those in which it is not Except for the last row the characteristics reported in this table

are binary For example ldquoboth parents illiteraterdquo =1 if both parents have no formal education and

otherwise it is zero ldquoprevious exposure to mazes beforerdquo =1 if the subject had seen mazes before and

otherwise it is zero and grade in school is equal to either 6th or 7th For binary variables the tests of

equality of means across conditions for the high caste are based on logit regressions one for each

characteristic and similarly for the low caste For ldquomean number of other participants knownrdquo the test of

equality of means is based on a t-test denotes rejection of the equality of means for the control and

identity conditions at p lt 005

21

Figure 3 shows the average number of mazes solved by H The figure is divided into

three blocks Block 1 is round 1 block 2 is round 2-piece rate and block 3 is round 2-

tournament In each block H output is lowest in Revealed Segregated Under the Mann-

Whitney U-test the differences between Revealed Segregated and the control are significant at p

lt 05 in all blocks In block 2 average output is higher in Revealed Mixed than in the control

but the difference is not significant

Figure 3 Average Output of High-Caste Participants

Note Brackets indicate differences between treatments with 95 confidence based on the Mann-

Whitney U-test

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

22

Figure 4 superimposes on Figure 3 the average outputs of L All three blocks show that

when caste is not revealed the average output of H is almost the same as that of L However

when caste is made public the performance declines for L are generally steeper than those for H

A significant caste gap emerges in Revealed Mixed in both rounds

Figure 4 Average Output of High-Caste and Low-Caste Participants

Note Vertical lines indicate caste gaps that are statistically significant based on the Mann-Whitney test

with 95 confidence

Figure 5 shows how the identity conditions impair L relative to H performance at the top

of the performance distribution The figure reports the ratio of L participants to all participants

with output at or above each decile in round 2 (If H and L were equally represented in each

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

High Caste

Low Caste

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

23

decile and if varying caste salience had the same effect on H and L then all points in the figure

would lie along the horizontal line at 05 ie in any cut of the distribution the proportion of L

participants would be one-half) The figure shows that if the top 10 percent of participants were

selected based on their performance in the control (Caste Not Revealed) L would be in the

majority But if selection was based on performance in Piece rate or Tournament Revealed

Mixed L would be in the minority And if selection was based on performance in Piece rate

Revealed Segregated it would result in an equal representation of H and L Thus whether H or

L are overrepresented in the top decile depends on the context in which the boys perform

Figure 5 Proportion of the Low Caste above each Performance Decile in Round 2

(Cumulative)

Note There is in general more than one participant whose performance ranks him at the border between

two deciles To explain the adjustment we make for this case we use an example Let n(20) = the

number of L in decile 20 n(30) = the number of L in decile 30 and n(b) = the number of L at the border

0

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Pro

po

rtio

n

Decile (10 is top decile)

Tournament Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Revealed Segregated

Tournament Revealed Mixed

Piece rate Revealed Mixed

Tournament Revealed Segregated

24

between deciles 20 and 30 Finally denote an L whose performance ranks him at the border between

these two deciles as a border person Lb Consider a case where n(20) = 2 n(30) = 1 and n(b) = 3 How

do we allocate the three border persons We allocate them so that the proportion of border persons in

decile 20 is equal to the ratio n(b)[n(20)+n(30) + n(b)] = 05 and the proportion of border persons in

decile 30 is also equal to this ratio Thus we allocate 2 border persons to decile 20 and the remaining

border person to decile 30 After the allocation decile 20 has 2L + 2Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos

in the decile is 5 as required And decile 30 has 1L + 1Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos in the decile is

also 5 as required Intuitively since there are twice as many Lrsquos in decile 20 as in decile 30 we allocate

twice as many border persons to decile 20 as to decile 30 For H the procedure is analogous

_____________________

5 Measuring Treatment Effects

51 Number of Mazes SolvedmdashFull Sample

We find patterns similar to those in Figure 4 in regressions that control for individual and family

characteristics We pool all the observations and allow for interactions among caste context

and incentives Table 2 columns (1)-(4) report OLS estimates with robust standard errors

clustered at the individual level for the following specification

Mazes solved in a round = α + ω(round is 2) + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (1)

+ (subject is Hsession cues identity) + τ(Tournament) + λ (Tournamentsubject is H) +

ξ(Tournamentsession cues identity) + θ(Tournamentsubject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z is a vector of individual and family characteristics The term α measures the predicted

output in the omitted case an L in Piece rate control in round 1 The next eight coefficients

(from ω to θ) measure the effects of round caste and treatments and the two-way and three-way

interactions10

10 For example γ is a vector that measures the difference for L between an identity condition (Revealed Mixed or

Revealed Segregated) and the control under piece rate incentives Using a subscript s for Revealed Segregated α +

ω + γs is the predicted output of L in round 2 of Revealed Segregated under piece rate incentives The predicted

output of H in Revealed Segregated under tournament incentives is α + ω + β + γs + s + τ + λ + ξs + θs

25

One result is immediate Low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste boys

when caste is not revealed The estimated coefficients on H and TH are always very small and

insignificant We get sensible results for round 2 and grade in school both factors significantly

improve round performance in every specification

Specification (1) uses only caste and treatment indicators Specification (2) adds controls

for individual characteristics grade in school previous exposure to mazes and number of other

participants known in a session Specification (3) adds controls for family characteristics In

this section we will analyze the results under the piece rate incentive we will analyze the results

under the tournament incentive in the Appendix

Between specifications (1) and (2) there is only one change in the set of significant

treatment effects the output decline by L in Revealed Mixed is no longer significant Table 3

reports the treatment effects in the first two columns The treatment effects of Revealed Mixed

for each caste (016 for H and -058 for L) are individually insignificant but jointly produce a

significant caste gap in favor of H The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed

Segregated is a significant decline of -093 mazes for both H and L This effect is roughly

double the effect on output of being in 6th

instead of 7th

grade (= -043 as shown in Table 2)

In order to check whether the channel through which social identity influences

behavior is classmdasha poor-versus-rich effect on performance as in Croizet and Claire (1998)mdash

rather than caste we next consider the effect of controls for family characteristics In Table 2

column (3) we control for parentsrsquo education motherrsquos employment outside the home and

fatherrsquos employment as a day laborer Because stigma is associated with daily wage-labor

our post-play survey did not ask ldquoIs your father a day laborerrdquo Instead the survey asked

about the fatherrsquos occupation We formed a binary variable for daily wage labor based on the

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

21

Figure 3 shows the average number of mazes solved by H The figure is divided into

three blocks Block 1 is round 1 block 2 is round 2-piece rate and block 3 is round 2-

tournament In each block H output is lowest in Revealed Segregated Under the Mann-

Whitney U-test the differences between Revealed Segregated and the control are significant at p

lt 05 in all blocks In block 2 average output is higher in Revealed Mixed than in the control

but the difference is not significant

Figure 3 Average Output of High-Caste Participants

Note Brackets indicate differences between treatments with 95 confidence based on the Mann-

Whitney U-test

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

22

Figure 4 superimposes on Figure 3 the average outputs of L All three blocks show that

when caste is not revealed the average output of H is almost the same as that of L However

when caste is made public the performance declines for L are generally steeper than those for H

A significant caste gap emerges in Revealed Mixed in both rounds

Figure 4 Average Output of High-Caste and Low-Caste Participants

Note Vertical lines indicate caste gaps that are statistically significant based on the Mann-Whitney test

with 95 confidence

Figure 5 shows how the identity conditions impair L relative to H performance at the top

of the performance distribution The figure reports the ratio of L participants to all participants

with output at or above each decile in round 2 (If H and L were equally represented in each

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

High Caste

Low Caste

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

23

decile and if varying caste salience had the same effect on H and L then all points in the figure

would lie along the horizontal line at 05 ie in any cut of the distribution the proportion of L

participants would be one-half) The figure shows that if the top 10 percent of participants were

selected based on their performance in the control (Caste Not Revealed) L would be in the

majority But if selection was based on performance in Piece rate or Tournament Revealed

Mixed L would be in the minority And if selection was based on performance in Piece rate

Revealed Segregated it would result in an equal representation of H and L Thus whether H or

L are overrepresented in the top decile depends on the context in which the boys perform

Figure 5 Proportion of the Low Caste above each Performance Decile in Round 2

(Cumulative)

Note There is in general more than one participant whose performance ranks him at the border between

two deciles To explain the adjustment we make for this case we use an example Let n(20) = the

number of L in decile 20 n(30) = the number of L in decile 30 and n(b) = the number of L at the border

0

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Pro

po

rtio

n

Decile (10 is top decile)

Tournament Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Revealed Segregated

Tournament Revealed Mixed

Piece rate Revealed Mixed

Tournament Revealed Segregated

24

between deciles 20 and 30 Finally denote an L whose performance ranks him at the border between

these two deciles as a border person Lb Consider a case where n(20) = 2 n(30) = 1 and n(b) = 3 How

do we allocate the three border persons We allocate them so that the proportion of border persons in

decile 20 is equal to the ratio n(b)[n(20)+n(30) + n(b)] = 05 and the proportion of border persons in

decile 30 is also equal to this ratio Thus we allocate 2 border persons to decile 20 and the remaining

border person to decile 30 After the allocation decile 20 has 2L + 2Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos

in the decile is 5 as required And decile 30 has 1L + 1Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos in the decile is

also 5 as required Intuitively since there are twice as many Lrsquos in decile 20 as in decile 30 we allocate

twice as many border persons to decile 20 as to decile 30 For H the procedure is analogous

_____________________

5 Measuring Treatment Effects

51 Number of Mazes SolvedmdashFull Sample

We find patterns similar to those in Figure 4 in regressions that control for individual and family

characteristics We pool all the observations and allow for interactions among caste context

and incentives Table 2 columns (1)-(4) report OLS estimates with robust standard errors

clustered at the individual level for the following specification

Mazes solved in a round = α + ω(round is 2) + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (1)

+ (subject is Hsession cues identity) + τ(Tournament) + λ (Tournamentsubject is H) +

ξ(Tournamentsession cues identity) + θ(Tournamentsubject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z is a vector of individual and family characteristics The term α measures the predicted

output in the omitted case an L in Piece rate control in round 1 The next eight coefficients

(from ω to θ) measure the effects of round caste and treatments and the two-way and three-way

interactions10

10 For example γ is a vector that measures the difference for L between an identity condition (Revealed Mixed or

Revealed Segregated) and the control under piece rate incentives Using a subscript s for Revealed Segregated α +

ω + γs is the predicted output of L in round 2 of Revealed Segregated under piece rate incentives The predicted

output of H in Revealed Segregated under tournament incentives is α + ω + β + γs + s + τ + λ + ξs + θs

25

One result is immediate Low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste boys

when caste is not revealed The estimated coefficients on H and TH are always very small and

insignificant We get sensible results for round 2 and grade in school both factors significantly

improve round performance in every specification

Specification (1) uses only caste and treatment indicators Specification (2) adds controls

for individual characteristics grade in school previous exposure to mazes and number of other

participants known in a session Specification (3) adds controls for family characteristics In

this section we will analyze the results under the piece rate incentive we will analyze the results

under the tournament incentive in the Appendix

Between specifications (1) and (2) there is only one change in the set of significant

treatment effects the output decline by L in Revealed Mixed is no longer significant Table 3

reports the treatment effects in the first two columns The treatment effects of Revealed Mixed

for each caste (016 for H and -058 for L) are individually insignificant but jointly produce a

significant caste gap in favor of H The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed

Segregated is a significant decline of -093 mazes for both H and L This effect is roughly

double the effect on output of being in 6th

instead of 7th

grade (= -043 as shown in Table 2)

In order to check whether the channel through which social identity influences

behavior is classmdasha poor-versus-rich effect on performance as in Croizet and Claire (1998)mdash

rather than caste we next consider the effect of controls for family characteristics In Table 2

column (3) we control for parentsrsquo education motherrsquos employment outside the home and

fatherrsquos employment as a day laborer Because stigma is associated with daily wage-labor

our post-play survey did not ask ldquoIs your father a day laborerrdquo Instead the survey asked

about the fatherrsquos occupation We formed a binary variable for daily wage labor based on the

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

22

Figure 4 superimposes on Figure 3 the average outputs of L All three blocks show that

when caste is not revealed the average output of H is almost the same as that of L However

when caste is made public the performance declines for L are generally steeper than those for H

A significant caste gap emerges in Revealed Mixed in both rounds

Figure 4 Average Output of High-Caste and Low-Caste Participants

Note Vertical lines indicate caste gaps that are statistically significant based on the Mann-Whitney test

with 95 confidence

Figure 5 shows how the identity conditions impair L relative to H performance at the top

of the performance distribution The figure reports the ratio of L participants to all participants

with output at or above each decile in round 2 (If H and L were equally represented in each

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Ave

rag

e o

utp

ut

High Caste

Low Caste

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

ROUND 1 ROUND 2

Piece Rate Piece Rate Tournament

23

decile and if varying caste salience had the same effect on H and L then all points in the figure

would lie along the horizontal line at 05 ie in any cut of the distribution the proportion of L

participants would be one-half) The figure shows that if the top 10 percent of participants were

selected based on their performance in the control (Caste Not Revealed) L would be in the

majority But if selection was based on performance in Piece rate or Tournament Revealed

Mixed L would be in the minority And if selection was based on performance in Piece rate

Revealed Segregated it would result in an equal representation of H and L Thus whether H or

L are overrepresented in the top decile depends on the context in which the boys perform

Figure 5 Proportion of the Low Caste above each Performance Decile in Round 2

(Cumulative)

Note There is in general more than one participant whose performance ranks him at the border between

two deciles To explain the adjustment we make for this case we use an example Let n(20) = the

number of L in decile 20 n(30) = the number of L in decile 30 and n(b) = the number of L at the border

0

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Pro

po

rtio

n

Decile (10 is top decile)

Tournament Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Revealed Segregated

Tournament Revealed Mixed

Piece rate Revealed Mixed

Tournament Revealed Segregated

24

between deciles 20 and 30 Finally denote an L whose performance ranks him at the border between

these two deciles as a border person Lb Consider a case where n(20) = 2 n(30) = 1 and n(b) = 3 How

do we allocate the three border persons We allocate them so that the proportion of border persons in

decile 20 is equal to the ratio n(b)[n(20)+n(30) + n(b)] = 05 and the proportion of border persons in

decile 30 is also equal to this ratio Thus we allocate 2 border persons to decile 20 and the remaining

border person to decile 30 After the allocation decile 20 has 2L + 2Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos

in the decile is 5 as required And decile 30 has 1L + 1Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos in the decile is

also 5 as required Intuitively since there are twice as many Lrsquos in decile 20 as in decile 30 we allocate

twice as many border persons to decile 20 as to decile 30 For H the procedure is analogous

_____________________

5 Measuring Treatment Effects

51 Number of Mazes SolvedmdashFull Sample

We find patterns similar to those in Figure 4 in regressions that control for individual and family

characteristics We pool all the observations and allow for interactions among caste context

and incentives Table 2 columns (1)-(4) report OLS estimates with robust standard errors

clustered at the individual level for the following specification

Mazes solved in a round = α + ω(round is 2) + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (1)

+ (subject is Hsession cues identity) + τ(Tournament) + λ (Tournamentsubject is H) +

ξ(Tournamentsession cues identity) + θ(Tournamentsubject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z is a vector of individual and family characteristics The term α measures the predicted

output in the omitted case an L in Piece rate control in round 1 The next eight coefficients

(from ω to θ) measure the effects of round caste and treatments and the two-way and three-way

interactions10

10 For example γ is a vector that measures the difference for L between an identity condition (Revealed Mixed or

Revealed Segregated) and the control under piece rate incentives Using a subscript s for Revealed Segregated α +

ω + γs is the predicted output of L in round 2 of Revealed Segregated under piece rate incentives The predicted

output of H in Revealed Segregated under tournament incentives is α + ω + β + γs + s + τ + λ + ξs + θs

25

One result is immediate Low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste boys

when caste is not revealed The estimated coefficients on H and TH are always very small and

insignificant We get sensible results for round 2 and grade in school both factors significantly

improve round performance in every specification

Specification (1) uses only caste and treatment indicators Specification (2) adds controls

for individual characteristics grade in school previous exposure to mazes and number of other

participants known in a session Specification (3) adds controls for family characteristics In

this section we will analyze the results under the piece rate incentive we will analyze the results

under the tournament incentive in the Appendix

Between specifications (1) and (2) there is only one change in the set of significant

treatment effects the output decline by L in Revealed Mixed is no longer significant Table 3

reports the treatment effects in the first two columns The treatment effects of Revealed Mixed

for each caste (016 for H and -058 for L) are individually insignificant but jointly produce a

significant caste gap in favor of H The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed

Segregated is a significant decline of -093 mazes for both H and L This effect is roughly

double the effect on output of being in 6th

instead of 7th

grade (= -043 as shown in Table 2)

In order to check whether the channel through which social identity influences

behavior is classmdasha poor-versus-rich effect on performance as in Croizet and Claire (1998)mdash

rather than caste we next consider the effect of controls for family characteristics In Table 2

column (3) we control for parentsrsquo education motherrsquos employment outside the home and

fatherrsquos employment as a day laborer Because stigma is associated with daily wage-labor

our post-play survey did not ask ldquoIs your father a day laborerrdquo Instead the survey asked

about the fatherrsquos occupation We formed a binary variable for daily wage labor based on the

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

23

decile and if varying caste salience had the same effect on H and L then all points in the figure

would lie along the horizontal line at 05 ie in any cut of the distribution the proportion of L

participants would be one-half) The figure shows that if the top 10 percent of participants were

selected based on their performance in the control (Caste Not Revealed) L would be in the

majority But if selection was based on performance in Piece rate or Tournament Revealed

Mixed L would be in the minority And if selection was based on performance in Piece rate

Revealed Segregated it would result in an equal representation of H and L Thus whether H or

L are overrepresented in the top decile depends on the context in which the boys perform

Figure 5 Proportion of the Low Caste above each Performance Decile in Round 2

(Cumulative)

Note There is in general more than one participant whose performance ranks him at the border between

two deciles To explain the adjustment we make for this case we use an example Let n(20) = the

number of L in decile 20 n(30) = the number of L in decile 30 and n(b) = the number of L at the border

0

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Pro

po

rtio

n

Decile (10 is top decile)

Tournament Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Caste Not Revealed

Piece rate Revealed Segregated

Tournament Revealed Mixed

Piece rate Revealed Mixed

Tournament Revealed Segregated

24

between deciles 20 and 30 Finally denote an L whose performance ranks him at the border between

these two deciles as a border person Lb Consider a case where n(20) = 2 n(30) = 1 and n(b) = 3 How

do we allocate the three border persons We allocate them so that the proportion of border persons in

decile 20 is equal to the ratio n(b)[n(20)+n(30) + n(b)] = 05 and the proportion of border persons in

decile 30 is also equal to this ratio Thus we allocate 2 border persons to decile 20 and the remaining

border person to decile 30 After the allocation decile 20 has 2L + 2Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos

in the decile is 5 as required And decile 30 has 1L + 1Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos in the decile is

also 5 as required Intuitively since there are twice as many Lrsquos in decile 20 as in decile 30 we allocate

twice as many border persons to decile 20 as to decile 30 For H the procedure is analogous

_____________________

5 Measuring Treatment Effects

51 Number of Mazes SolvedmdashFull Sample

We find patterns similar to those in Figure 4 in regressions that control for individual and family

characteristics We pool all the observations and allow for interactions among caste context

and incentives Table 2 columns (1)-(4) report OLS estimates with robust standard errors

clustered at the individual level for the following specification

Mazes solved in a round = α + ω(round is 2) + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (1)

+ (subject is Hsession cues identity) + τ(Tournament) + λ (Tournamentsubject is H) +

ξ(Tournamentsession cues identity) + θ(Tournamentsubject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z is a vector of individual and family characteristics The term α measures the predicted

output in the omitted case an L in Piece rate control in round 1 The next eight coefficients

(from ω to θ) measure the effects of round caste and treatments and the two-way and three-way

interactions10

10 For example γ is a vector that measures the difference for L between an identity condition (Revealed Mixed or

Revealed Segregated) and the control under piece rate incentives Using a subscript s for Revealed Segregated α +

ω + γs is the predicted output of L in round 2 of Revealed Segregated under piece rate incentives The predicted

output of H in Revealed Segregated under tournament incentives is α + ω + β + γs + s + τ + λ + ξs + θs

25

One result is immediate Low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste boys

when caste is not revealed The estimated coefficients on H and TH are always very small and

insignificant We get sensible results for round 2 and grade in school both factors significantly

improve round performance in every specification

Specification (1) uses only caste and treatment indicators Specification (2) adds controls

for individual characteristics grade in school previous exposure to mazes and number of other

participants known in a session Specification (3) adds controls for family characteristics In

this section we will analyze the results under the piece rate incentive we will analyze the results

under the tournament incentive in the Appendix

Between specifications (1) and (2) there is only one change in the set of significant

treatment effects the output decline by L in Revealed Mixed is no longer significant Table 3

reports the treatment effects in the first two columns The treatment effects of Revealed Mixed

for each caste (016 for H and -058 for L) are individually insignificant but jointly produce a

significant caste gap in favor of H The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed

Segregated is a significant decline of -093 mazes for both H and L This effect is roughly

double the effect on output of being in 6th

instead of 7th

grade (= -043 as shown in Table 2)

In order to check whether the channel through which social identity influences

behavior is classmdasha poor-versus-rich effect on performance as in Croizet and Claire (1998)mdash

rather than caste we next consider the effect of controls for family characteristics In Table 2

column (3) we control for parentsrsquo education motherrsquos employment outside the home and

fatherrsquos employment as a day laborer Because stigma is associated with daily wage-labor

our post-play survey did not ask ldquoIs your father a day laborerrdquo Instead the survey asked

about the fatherrsquos occupation We formed a binary variable for daily wage labor based on the

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

24

between deciles 20 and 30 Finally denote an L whose performance ranks him at the border between

these two deciles as a border person Lb Consider a case where n(20) = 2 n(30) = 1 and n(b) = 3 How

do we allocate the three border persons We allocate them so that the proportion of border persons in

decile 20 is equal to the ratio n(b)[n(20)+n(30) + n(b)] = 05 and the proportion of border persons in

decile 30 is also equal to this ratio Thus we allocate 2 border persons to decile 20 and the remaining

border person to decile 30 After the allocation decile 20 has 2L + 2Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos

in the decile is 5 as required And decile 30 has 1L + 1Lb the proportion of boundary Lrsquos in the decile is

also 5 as required Intuitively since there are twice as many Lrsquos in decile 20 as in decile 30 we allocate

twice as many border persons to decile 20 as to decile 30 For H the procedure is analogous

_____________________

5 Measuring Treatment Effects

51 Number of Mazes SolvedmdashFull Sample

We find patterns similar to those in Figure 4 in regressions that control for individual and family

characteristics We pool all the observations and allow for interactions among caste context

and incentives Table 2 columns (1)-(4) report OLS estimates with robust standard errors

clustered at the individual level for the following specification

Mazes solved in a round = α + ω(round is 2) + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (1)

+ (subject is Hsession cues identity) + τ(Tournament) + λ (Tournamentsubject is H) +

ξ(Tournamentsession cues identity) + θ(Tournamentsubject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z is a vector of individual and family characteristics The term α measures the predicted

output in the omitted case an L in Piece rate control in round 1 The next eight coefficients

(from ω to θ) measure the effects of round caste and treatments and the two-way and three-way

interactions10

10 For example γ is a vector that measures the difference for L between an identity condition (Revealed Mixed or

Revealed Segregated) and the control under piece rate incentives Using a subscript s for Revealed Segregated α +

ω + γs is the predicted output of L in round 2 of Revealed Segregated under piece rate incentives The predicted

output of H in Revealed Segregated under tournament incentives is α + ω + β + γs + s + τ + λ + ξs + θs

25

One result is immediate Low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste boys

when caste is not revealed The estimated coefficients on H and TH are always very small and

insignificant We get sensible results for round 2 and grade in school both factors significantly

improve round performance in every specification

Specification (1) uses only caste and treatment indicators Specification (2) adds controls

for individual characteristics grade in school previous exposure to mazes and number of other

participants known in a session Specification (3) adds controls for family characteristics In

this section we will analyze the results under the piece rate incentive we will analyze the results

under the tournament incentive in the Appendix

Between specifications (1) and (2) there is only one change in the set of significant

treatment effects the output decline by L in Revealed Mixed is no longer significant Table 3

reports the treatment effects in the first two columns The treatment effects of Revealed Mixed

for each caste (016 for H and -058 for L) are individually insignificant but jointly produce a

significant caste gap in favor of H The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed

Segregated is a significant decline of -093 mazes for both H and L This effect is roughly

double the effect on output of being in 6th

instead of 7th

grade (= -043 as shown in Table 2)

In order to check whether the channel through which social identity influences

behavior is classmdasha poor-versus-rich effect on performance as in Croizet and Claire (1998)mdash

rather than caste we next consider the effect of controls for family characteristics In Table 2

column (3) we control for parentsrsquo education motherrsquos employment outside the home and

fatherrsquos employment as a day laborer Because stigma is associated with daily wage-labor

our post-play survey did not ask ldquoIs your father a day laborerrdquo Instead the survey asked

about the fatherrsquos occupation We formed a binary variable for daily wage labor based on the

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

25

One result is immediate Low-caste boys solve mazes just as well as high-caste boys

when caste is not revealed The estimated coefficients on H and TH are always very small and

insignificant We get sensible results for round 2 and grade in school both factors significantly

improve round performance in every specification

Specification (1) uses only caste and treatment indicators Specification (2) adds controls

for individual characteristics grade in school previous exposure to mazes and number of other

participants known in a session Specification (3) adds controls for family characteristics In

this section we will analyze the results under the piece rate incentive we will analyze the results

under the tournament incentive in the Appendix

Between specifications (1) and (2) there is only one change in the set of significant

treatment effects the output decline by L in Revealed Mixed is no longer significant Table 3

reports the treatment effects in the first two columns The treatment effects of Revealed Mixed

for each caste (016 for H and -058 for L) are individually insignificant but jointly produce a

significant caste gap in favor of H The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed

Segregated is a significant decline of -093 mazes for both H and L This effect is roughly

double the effect on output of being in 6th

instead of 7th

grade (= -043 as shown in Table 2)

In order to check whether the channel through which social identity influences

behavior is classmdasha poor-versus-rich effect on performance as in Croizet and Claire (1998)mdash

rather than caste we next consider the effect of controls for family characteristics In Table 2

column (3) we control for parentsrsquo education motherrsquos employment outside the home and

fatherrsquos employment as a day laborer Because stigma is associated with daily wage-labor

our post-play survey did not ask ldquoIs your father a day laborerrdquo Instead the survey asked

about the fatherrsquos occupation We formed a binary variable for daily wage labor based on the

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

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DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

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Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

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445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

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Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

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Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

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Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

26

responses Adding controls for class reduces the declines in performance in Revealed

Segregated The treatment effect of moving from the control to Revealed Segregated is

marginally significant for H (-090 p lt 010) not for L (-074 p = 011) However two key

results are robust to adding controls for class First merely making caste public without

segregating H from L does not impair H performance (the effect is 014= -51 + 65 and

insignificant) Second H and L are equally good at solving mazes when caste is not

revealed whereas in Revealed Mixed a significant caste gap favoring H emerges (= 035 +

065=10 p = 001)

We have emphasized specification (2) in Table 2 more than specification (3) because

we cannot reject the hypothesis that parental variables have no effect on performance

F(6486)= 158 p-value=011 The only proxy for class that is individually significant is

fatherrsquos education and its effect is not in the direction that is predicted by the hypothesis that

class stigma impedes performance

It might be however that parental variables matter for L but not H because having

educated parents alleviates low-caste stigma Therefore in unreported regressions we reran

specification (3) separately for H and L participants We still find that parental variables have

little explanatory power and are insignificant by an F-test We also checked for the effect of

having two illiterate parents We find that this is not significant (result not shown) In these and

all other regressions that we have run we find no evidence that class is the channel through

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

27

Notes Standard errors in parentheses are robust to heteroskedasticity and observations are clustered at the level of the individual The omitted case is L in Caste Not

Revealed under piece rate incentives Column (4) excludes participants who have zero output in both rounds Round 2 = 1 for round 2 and zero for round 1 Grade in

school = 1 if the participant is in grade 7 0 if he is in grade 6 Previous exposure to mazes = 1 if some time before the experiment the participant had seen mazes 0

otherwise Number of other participants known is the number of others in the experimental session known to a given participant plt001 plt005 plt010

Table 2 OLS Estimates of the Determinants of Output per Round and Output Change between Rounds

Dependent variable Output per round Output change

between rounds

Without

individual and

family

characteristics

With

individual

characteristics

With

individual

and family

characteristics

Excluding

participants

who solved

zero mazes

With individual

characteristics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

High caste (H) 029 016 035 056

025

(035) (036) (039) (034)

(042)

Round 2 214 217 227 233

(015) (016) (016) (016)

Revealed Mixed -070 -058 -051 -007

-054

(034) (037) (038) (035)

(039)

Revealed Segregated -097 -093 -074 -070

-086

(037) (040) (046) (040)

(043)

Tournament (T) 140 145 144 128

106

(065) (066) (066) (066)

(055)

Revealed Mixed H 075 073 065 -012

064

(048) (050) (053) (047)

(060)

Revealed Segregated H 002 -001 -016 -052

-064

(054) (058) (065) (056)

(064)

TH -026 -012 -014 -004

-044

(089) (090) (096) (086)

(077)

Revealed Mixed T -135 -159 -202 -148

-102

(076) (078) (078) (077)

(069)

Revealed Segregated T -277 -305 -302 -282

-138

(076) (077) (082) (077)

(076)

Revealed Mixed T H -007 002 067 -016

-026

(108) (111) (120) (108)

(100)

Revealed SegregatedT H 173 173 191 192

256

(114) (121) (133) (116)

(105)

Grade in school

043 051 045

034

(021) (023) (021)

(021)

Previous exposure to mazes

037 051 035

-019

(030) (033) (029)

(036)

Number of participants

006 010 001

002

known

(009) (009) (008)

(009)

Mothers education Є(06)

028

(030)

Mothers education ge 6

044

(033)

Fathers education Є(06)

-064

(039)

Fathers education ge 6

-091

(034)

Mother employed outside

005

home

(053)

Father not a day

055

laborer

(035)

Constant 326 297 276 298

216

(024) (028) (050) (028)

(032)

R2 0189 0197 0221 0223 0080

N 1164 1076 928 1008 538

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

References

Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

28

Table 3 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Piece-rate Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero mazes

Output change between rounds full

sample

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7) (8) (9)

Estimated treatment

effect of

Revealed Mixed 016 -058

-019 -007

010 -054

(036) (037)

(034) (035)

-046 -039

Revealed Segregated -093 -093

-123 -070

-150 -086

(042) (040) (041) (040) (049) -043

Mean outcome in

Caste Not Revealed 422 406

471 415

241 216

Effect of Revealed

Segregated as of

mean

in Caste Not Revealed -22 -23 -26 -17 -62 -40

Notes Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds The treatment effects can be derived

from the regressions in Table 2 Effects in columns (1)-(3) are from regression (2) those in columns (4)-(6) are from regression (4) those in

columns (7)-(9) are from regression (5) However it is easier to obtain the effects and standard errors for H by running regressions in which H is

the benchmark caste plt001 plt005 plt01

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

References

Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

29

which caste influences behavior However since we do not have measures of income and

wealth the concern that unobserved class variables may matter remains

52 Between-Round Change in the Number of Mazes Solved

As an additional check on our results we consider the treatment effects on the change in

output between rounds This is shown in the last three columns of Table 3 In Piece-rate control

H and L are significantly improving their skills across rounds (217 mazes p lt 01) Revealed

Segregated reduces output change between rounds for H by 62 (p lt 01) and for L by 40 (p lt

05)

53 Success or Failure in Learning How to Solve a Maze

In the remainder of this section we decompose performance into two stages

Stage 1 Learning a new skill The participant learns what it means to solve a maze

The outcome is binarymdashsuccess or failure We measure failure by zero output by a

participant during the 30 minutes of maze-solving

Stage 2 Applying the skill In this stage the outcome is the number of mazes solved

conditional on success in learning how to solve a maze

Table 4 reports the failure rate by identity condition treatment and caste For H in PP

failure is greater in the control (9) than in the two identity conditions (2 and 3) For H in

PT however the effect of revealing caste is not consistent across the PP and PT treatments

7 (230) fail in the control 0 (060) fail in Revealed Mixed and 10 (330) fail in Revealed

Segregated Since the experimental conditions in PP and PT were identical until round 2 and

since if caste was revealed it happened at the beginning of a session it is reasonable to pool PP

and PT within the Revealed Mixed condition and within the Revealed Segregated condition

When we do this a pattern emerges in which revealing caste decreases the failure rate

among H failure is greater in the control (8 or 9108) than in either Revealed Mixed (2 or

2120) or Revealed Segregated (7 or 460) For L the pattern is the reverse failure is smaller

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

References

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of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

30

in the control (2 or 2108) than in either Revealed Mixed (13 or 15120) or Revealed

Segregated (9 or 666)

To fit a logit model it is necessary to collapse the two identity conditions and also the

two incentive conditions11

We estimate

Failure = α + β(subject is H) + γ(session cues identity) (2)

+ (subject is H session cues identity) + μΖ + error

where Z are individual characteristics The benchmark case is L Caste Not Revealed We use

the logit results reported in Supporting Table S2 to predict the probability of failure Figure 6

presents the results The figure shows that revealing caste reduces failure among H from 8 to

2 and increases failure among L from 1 to 11 controlling for individual characteristics

The treatment effects are significant and robust to the addition of controls for household

characteristics The effects are consistent with the predictions of stereotype susceptibility when

participants are made more aware of caste H are less likely and L are more likely to fail to learn

how to solve a maze

54 Number of Mazes Solved by the Subsample Excluding Non-Learners

An advantage of decomposing performance into stages is that we can consider treatment effects

on performance conditional on knowing how to solve a maze We report the effects in Table 3

columns (4)-(5) Are the qualitative results for the full sample robust in the subsample

11

Otherwise the estimates are unbounded since some cells in Table 4 are empty

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

31

Table 4 Proportion of Participants with Zero Output

Treatment

Number of participants with zero

output Total number of

participants of the respective

caste in the treatment

Proportion

High caste Low caste

High caste Low caste

PP- Caste Not Revealed 778 278 009 003

PP-Revealed Mixed 160 960 002 015

PP- Revealed Segregated 130 230 003 007

PT -Caste Not Revealed 230 030 007 0

PT- Revealed Mixed 060 660 0 010

PT -Revealed Segregated 330 436 010 011

Figure 6 Predicted Probability of Failure

Note Based on the logit regression in Supporting Table S2 column (1) The control variables are grade in school

prevision exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session The predicted probabilities are

estimated at the means of the control variables

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

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Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

32

The high caste The treatment effects of making caste public are stronger in the

subsample than in the full sample The reason is that in the subsample we are not capturing the

stage 1 effect in which making caste public reduces the probability that H will fail to learn how

to solve mazes In the full sample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is -093 (p lt

005) compared to -123 (p lt 001) in the subsample We view this latter figure (-123) which is

a 26 decline in performance as our best estimate of the entitlement effect By this we mean the

effect on a high-caste boyrsquos output conditional on his knowing how to solve a maze of moving

from the control condition (where the authority figure is silent about caste) to Revealed

Segregated (where segregation cues high-caste boysrsquo place in the social order) We call it the

entitlement effect because we conjecture that the treatment effect reflects a reduced need to

achieve in a situation that cues onersquos place in the traditional ascriptive social order The

entitlement effect on H is thus about the same size as the performance decline by L that could be

attributed to stereotype threat (= -23 see column 2) These treatment effects are large They

are the same order of magnitude ndashndashbut of opposite signmdashas the effect of switching from the

piece rate to the winner-take-all tournament in the control condition (25 for H and 28 for L)

Besides the entitlement effect other hypotheses might explain the decline in H

performance in Revealed Segregated The first is a perverse kind of stereotype susceptibility

Such an effect occurred in one of the two experiments in Shih et al (2002) They compared a

mild versus blatant activation of a positive stereotype They found in one experiment that

priming Asian identity had no effect on Asian-Americansrsquo performance on a math test and in the

second experiment that it significantly impaired performance perhaps by creating anxiety in

participantsrsquo minds that their performance would not confirm the high expectations for Asians in

the US But our finding that the identity conditions in aggregate reduced the proportion of

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

References

Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

33

individuals who failed to learn how to solve a maze does not support the view that the identity

conditions increased anxiety

Second because the caste order is always contested it could be that in Revealed Mixed

H feel a need to demonstrate (even if only to themselves) their superiority and that they do not

feel this need in Revealed Segregated Ultimately the second hypothesis comes down to largely

the same thing as our preferred one namely that contexts that reinforce the complacency of the

high caste in their superior status induce them to value less the rewards from individual

achievement

The low caste Next consider the treatment effects for L in the subsample compared to

the full sample (Table 3 columns (2) and (5)) We find that making caste public reduces output

less in the subsample because in the subsample we are not capturing the stage 1 effect in which

making caste identity public increase the probability that L will fail to learn how to solve a maze

In the subsample the treatment effect of Revealed Segregated is no longer significant under

piece rates This suggests that under piece rate incentives the identity conditions impair L

performance primarily by reducing their success at learning the new task (maze-solving)

6 Further Evidence

In this section we discuss evidence that bears on the mental frames that Revealed Segregated

evokes in high-caste and low-caste boys

Revealed Segregated reduces the self-confidence of the low-caste boys In an earlier

experiment (Hoff and Pandey 2005) we used random assignment of participants to the three

conditions of caste salience (Caste Not Revealed Revealed Mixed and Revealed Segregated) to

assess the relationship between caste salience and self-confidence In a six-person session H

and L were taught how to solve a wooden puzzle that we had constructed along the lines of the

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

References

Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

34

game Rush-Hour Traffic Jam At the end of the session participants had to make a choice

between a sure payoff and a lottery with a high payoff if the individual solved a new puzzle

successfully and zero otherwise In choosing the lottery a participant was betting on his own

success The outcome is thus a test of self-confidence The results showed no significant caste

gap in the acceptance rate of the lottery in both the Caste Not Revealed and Revealed Mixed

conditions In contrast in Revealed Segregated there was a large and significant caste gap in the

proportion that accepted the lottery when the puzzle was difficult and the judge had some

discretion in evaluating a playerrsquos success 70 of H compared to only 33 of L accepted the

lottery (p = 004) This evidence supports the hypothesis that Revealed Segregated evokes a

mental model in which a low-caste may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to excelrdquo

Observational studies of school enrollment point to a causal effect of caste salience on

low school enrollment by both high- and low-caste students Consider again our conjecture

that when the social division between high and low castes is salient a high-caste boy may think

ldquoI donrsquot need to excelrdquo If this is correct it would predict that when caste boundaries are eroded

a high-caste boy (or his family on his behalf) may think ldquoI need to work harder to better

myselfrdquo This prediction is consistent with the findings in Kochar (2004) She analyzes an

Indian government policy to construct schools in low-caste hamlets The policy led to an

increase in low-caste enrollment The increased school enrollment of low-caste children had

however an unintended effect it increased the enrollment rate of the upper castes Thus aid

targeted to Dalits did not as policy-makers had expected narrow the schooling gap between the

Dalits and the rest of society The increase in high-caste enrollment maintained the relative

superiority of the high caste in years of education12

12

We thank Anjini Kochar for bringing her work to our attention

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

References

Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

35

Finally an observational study in Pakistan identifies a causal impact of high-caste

dominance on low enrollment of low-caste children in school This finding is consistent with our

conjecture that cues to the caste order evoke a mental frame that impairs low-caste individualsrsquo

ability or desire (or both) to achieve in the classroom Jacoby and Mansuri (2011) analyze data

from a survey of over 3000 households and 1000 elementary schools in rural Pakistan They

define a settlement as high-caste-dominant if a high caste owns the majority of land in the

settlement giving them the power to enforce the traditional caste order They show that low-

caste children are deterred from enrolling in schools in high-caste dominant settlements They

find that the very low enrollment of low-caste children13

for whom the closest available school is

in a high-caste-dominant hamlet can account for the entire enrollment gap favoring high-caste

over low-caste children The following responses from low-caste women to the question ldquoDo

children receive the same treatment from teachersrdquo illustrate the kinds of exclusionary norms

imposed on low-caste individuals

ldquoThey let the daughters of [high castes] use the latrines but tell our daughters to use the

fields because you stinkrdquo ldquoThe teachers make the daughters of Zamindar Zaats [high

castes] sit inside the rooms under the fans Our poor children are outside under the sun

and dustrdquo (Jacoby and Mansuri p 7)

These two observational studies mdashthe only studies of which we are aware that examine

the effect on achievement of increasing or decreasing the salience of the caste ordermdashindicate

that when onersquos traditional status in the social order seems more fixed both high- and low-caste

individuals are less likely to enroll in school

13

Especially girls for whom honor considerations restrict the freedom to travel outside their own hamlet

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

References

Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

36

7 Conclusion

The experimental data show that being hard-working or clever is not a trait of the person in the

sense that it is always there in a fixed manner Instead situational cues to onersquos place in the

social order influence the expression of these traits Cues to caste identity in mixed-caste groups

depressed the ability of the low-caste to learn a new skill Segregation by caste status did not

impair the ability of high-caste boys to learn a new skill but sharply reduced their performance

in using the new skill The influence of identity on performance suggests the usefulness of the

theories that posit a frame-dependent self In this view context may affect performance by

changing not what it is objectively appropriate to do but instead by changing the set of

associations that are elicited and the mental model through which the individual interprets the

situation Borrowing from the title of a recent book Framed by Gender (Ridgeway 2011) one

might say that our subjects were framed by caste Our findings provide evidence of one possible

source of the caste gap in school performance in north India Pandey et al (2010) find that after

controlling for observed family characteristics and school fixed effects high-caste students have

significantly higher test scores than low-caste students in rural public primary schools in the

Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where caste and class hierarchies run deep

Our findings contribute to a richer view of institutional change than one that follows from

the standard definition of institutions-as-rules Besides rules institutions also entail social

identities and worldviews (see Greif 2006 section 216) Social identities made salient by

situational cuesmdashby frockcoats and tight-laced corsets race names or caste namesmdashhave an

independent influence on ldquomaking up peoplerdquo After the rules of an institution have been

abolished and the structure of power that underpinned them has changed the identities founded

on the superseded rules will continue to affect chronic ways that people think about themselves

and interpret the world unless prevailing situations make those identities less salient For

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

References

Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

37

example when towns emerged in medieval Europeldquo[i]t was not only that the serf having

escaped from the countryside found legal freedom in the town but that the while social

atmosphere there was open to ambition and talentrdquo (Cipolla 1994 p 119) The new possibilities

for upward mobility depended on change in the social as well as the legal environment No one

would argue with this although these ideas rarely enter into economic models

Rural India is in transition between a feudal and a capitalist economic system Our

findings suggest that boys in India hold in uneasy tension a traditional worldview in which

caste is destiny and a modern worldview in which each person shapes his own destiny We

measured the effects on childrenrsquos performance of manipulating the publicness and salience of

the traditional caste identities Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changing the

publicness and salience of caste affects which of the two worldviews is uppermost in the

childrenrsquos minds

We have argued that it is a useful construct to posit that an individual has multiple

preferences one for each of his mental models or worldviews because this perspective opens up

a new set of policy options for enhancing human capital formation and development It is also

useful for understanding long-run social change which entails changes in the salience of

particular identities the set of possible identities and the possible ways of understanding a

situation This perspective highlights the relevance to economics of understanding how the set

of possible identities (and not merely the possible technologies and the stock of resources)

evolves in a society Recent work in economics takes up this exciting question (eg Hoff and

Sen 2006 Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 Hoff and Stiglitz 2010 Greif and Laitin 2004 and

Greif and Tabellini 2012)

38

References

Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

38

References

Afridi Farzana Sherry Xin Li and Yufei Ren 2010 Social Identity and Inequality The Impact

of Chinarsquos Hukou System Manuscript University of Texas-Dallas

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2000 The Economics of Identity Quarterly Journal of

Economics 115(3) 715-753

Akerlof George and Rachel Kranton 2002 Identity and Schooling Some Lessons for the

Economics of Education Journal of Economic Literature 40(4) 1167-1201

Alter Adam 2013 Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape how We Think Feel

and Behave New York Penguin Press

Ambady Nalini Margaret Shih Amy Kim and Todd Pittinsky 2001 Stereotype Susceptibility in

Children Effects of Identity Activation on Quantitative Performance Psychological Science

12(5) 385-390

Bandiera Oriana Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives

Evidence from Personnel Data 2005 Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3) 917-962

Begley Sharon 2007 Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books New York

Bellmore Amy and Ayako Tomonaga 2009 When Kids Use Ethnicity and Gender to Bully

Web httpwwweducationcomreferencearticleethnicity-gender-bullying

Benjamin Daniel J James J Choi and A Joshua Strickland 2010 Social Identity and

Preferences American Economic Review 100(4) 1913-1928

Beacuteteille Andreacute 2011 The Andreacute Beacuteteille Omnibus Oxford University Press Delhi

Cassan Guilhem 2011 Law and Identity Manipulation Evidence from Colonial Punjab Paris

School of Economics manuscript

Cohn Alain Michel Andreacute Mareacutechal and Thomas Noll 2013 Saliency of Criminal Identity

Causes Dishonest Behaviour An Experiment Behind Bars University of Zurich

manuscript

Connerton Paul 1989 How Societies Remember Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cipolla Carlo M 1994 Before the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy

1000-1700 WW Norton amp Company New York 3rd

edition

Croizet Jean-Claude and Theresa Claire 1998 Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to

Social Class The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic

Backgrounds Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6) 588-594

Danziger Shai and Robert Ward 2010 Language Changes Implicit Associations between Ethnic

Groups and Evaluation in Bilinguals Psychological Science 21(6) 799-800

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

39

Deacuteliege Robert 1999 The Untouchables of India Berg Publishers Oxford UK

Deshpande Ashwini 2011 The Grammar of Caste Economic Discrimination in Contemporary

India Oxford Oxford University Press

DiMaggio Paul 1997 Culture and Cognition Annual Review of Sociology 23(1) 263-287

Fang Hanming and Loury Glenn C 2005 Dysfunctional Identities Can Be Rational American

Economic Review 95(2) 104-111

Fehr Ernst Karla Hoff and Mayuresh Kshetramade 2008 Spite and Development American

Economic Review Papers amp Proceedings 98(2) 494-499

Ferguson Ronald F 2003 Teachers Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test

Score Gap Urban Education 38(4) 460-507

Fryer Roland G Jr 2011 The importance of segregation discrimination peer dynamics and

identity in explaining trends in the racial achievement gap in Handbook of Social

Economics eds Jess Benhabib Alberto Bisin and Matthew O Jackson Amsterdam

North-Holland 165-1192

Fryer Roland G Jr Steven D Levitt and John A List 2008 Exploring the Impact of Financial

Incentives on Stereotype Threat Evidence from a Pilot Studyrdquo American Economic

Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2) 370-375

Gneezy Uri Muriel Niederle and Aldo Rustichini 2003 Performance in competitive

environments Gender differences Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3) 1049-1074

Greif Avner and David Laitin 2004 A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change American

Political Science Review 98(4) 14-48

Greif Avner and Guido Tabellini 2012 The Clan and the City Sustaining Cooperation in

China and Europe Working paper 445 IGIER Bocconi University

Greif Avner 2006 Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Lessons from Medieval

Trade Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Gupta Dipankar 2000 Interrogating Caste Understanding Hierarchy and Difference in Indian

Society Penguin Books New Delhi

Hacking Ian 1986 Making up People In TC Heller M Sosna and D E Wellbery (Eds)

Reconstructing Individualism Stanford University Press Stanford

Hoff Karla Mayuresh Kshetremade and Ernst Fehr 2011 Caste and Punishment The Legacy

of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement Economic Journal 121(556) F449-F475

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2005 Opportunity is Not Everything How Belief Systems

and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives Economics of Transition 13(2)

445-472

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

40

Hoff Karla and Priyanka Pandey 2006 Discrimination Social Identity and Durable

Inequalities American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 96(2) 206-211

Hoff Karla and Arijit Sen The Kin System as a Poverty Trap in Poverty Traps Samuel

Bowles Steven Durlauf and Karla Hoff (eds) Princeton University Press 2006 95-115

Hoff Karla and Joseph E Stiglitz 2010 Equilibrium Fictions A Cognitive Approach to Societal

Rigidity American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 100(2) 141-146

Human Rights Watch 1999 Broken People Caste Violence against Indiarsquos ldquoUntouchablesrdquo

New York Human Rights Watch

Jacoby Hanan and Ghazala Mansuri 2011 Crossing Boundaries Caste Stigma and Schooling

in Rural Pakistan WPS 5710 The World Bank Washington DC

Kapur Devesh Chandra Bhan Prasad Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu 2010 Rethinking

Inequality Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era Economic and Political

Weekly 45(35) 39-49

Kochar Anjini 2004 Reducing Social Gaps in Schooling Caste and the Differential Effect of

School Construction Programs in Rural India Manuscript Stanford University

Krendl Anne C Jennifer A Richeson William M Kelley and Todd F Heatherton 2008 The

Negative Consequence of Threat A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of

the Neural Mechanism Underlying Womenrsquos Underperformance in Math Psychological

Science 19(2) 168-175

Lambarraa Fatima and Gerhard Riener 2012 ldquoOn the norms of charitable giving in Islam A

field experimentrdquo DICE Discussion Paper 59 Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf

LeBoeuf Robyn A Eldar Shafir and Julia B Bayuk 2010 The Conflicting Choices of

Alternating Selves Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111(1) 48-

61

Marriott Alan 2003 Dalit or Harijan Self-Naming by Scheduled Caste Interviewees

Economic and Political Weekly 38(36) 3751-3752

Munshi Kaivan and Mark Rosenzweig 2006 Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World

Caste Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy American Economic

Review 96(4) 1225-1252

Munshi Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson 2008 Identity Parochial Institutions and Career

Decisions Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest Manuscript Brown

University

Ogbu John U 1999 Beyond Language Ebonics Proper English and Identity in a Black-

American Speech Community American Educational Research Journal 36(2) 147-184

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

41

Ogunnaike Oludamini Yarrow Dunham and Mahzarin R Banaji 2010 The Language of

Implicit Preferences Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 999-1003

Pandey Priyanka 2010 Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services Does History

Matter American Economic Journal Applied Economics 2 190-204

Pandey Priyanka Sangeeta Goyal and Venkatesh Sundararaman 2010 Public Participation

Teacher Accountability and School Outcomes in Three States Economic and Political

Weekly 45(24) 75-83

Pollak Seth D 2008 Mechanisms Linking Early Experience and the Emergence of Emotions

Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(6) 370-375

Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE Team) 1999 Public Report on Basic

Education in India Oxford University Press New Delhi

Rao Vijayendra and Radu Ban 2007 Political Construction of Caste in South India

manuscript

Ridgeway Cecilia L 2011 Framed by Gender Oxford University Press Oxford

Ritterhouse Jennifer 2006 Growing up Jim Crow How Black and White Southern Children

Learned Race University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

Salant Yuval and Ariel Rubinstein 2008 (Af) Choice with Frames Review of Economic

Studies 75(4) 1287-1296

Schmader Toni Michael Johns and Chad Forbes 2008 An Integrated Process Model of

Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Psychological Review 115(2) 336-356

Sen Amartya 2006 Identity and Violence The Illusion of Destiny WWNorton ampCo NY

Shah Ghanshyam Harsh Mander Sukhadeo Thorat Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar

2006 Untouchability in Rural India Sage Publications New Delhi

Shih Margaret Todd Pittinsky and Nalini Ambady 1999 Stereotype Susceptibility Identity

Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance Psychological Science 10(1) 80-83

Shih Margaret Nalini Ambady Jennifer Richeson Kentaro Fujita and Heather Gray 2002

Stereo-type Performance Boosts The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of

Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3) 638-647

Srinivas M N 2009 The Oxford India Srinivas Oxford University Press Oxford

Steele Claude and Joshua Aronson 1995 Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test

Performance of African-Americans Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5)

797-811

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

42

Swidler Ann 1986 Culture in Action Symbols and Strategies American Sociological Review

51(2) 273-286

Swidler Ann 2001 Talk of Love How Culture Matters University of Chicago Press Chicago

Tverksy Amos and Daniel Kahneman 1983 Extensional versus Intuitive Reasoning The

Conjunction Fallacy in Probabilistic Reasoning Psychological Review 90 293-315 1983

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

43

Appendix Analysis of the tournaments

Recall from Figure 1 that the experiment used two different financial incentives Some

treatments used piece rate incentives in both rounds (ldquoPP treatmentsrdquo) and others used piece

rate incentives in round 1 and tournament incentives in round 2 (ldquoPT treatmentsrdquo) Under the

tournament incentive a participant earned six rupees per maze solved if he solved the most

mazes in his session otherwise he earned nothing A winner could (and some did) earn 15 x 6

rupees equivalent to almost two daysrsquo unskilled adult wages In case of a tie both winners

received the prize

In piece rates payoffs depend only on own performance In contrast revealing the caste

identity of the other participants in a tournament might affect beliefs about the individualrsquos own

chances of winning the tournament In addition if a participant knows that he is competing

against members of his own community he might not wish to best them in the game Thus in

analyzing the results in this section there are many more possible influences on behavior and

we cannot disentangle them We first report all treatment effects and then discuss the possible

explanations

Results

When caste is not revealed the shift from the piece-rate to the tournament incentive

significantly increases performance In Table 2 columns (1)-(4) all coefficients on tournament

are significantly positive The table also shows that in all specifications the coefficient on TH

is insignificant This means that the response of H to tournament incentives is statistically

indistinguishable from that of L

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

44

Revealing caste whether in mixed or segregated groups eliminates the performance

boost from tournament incentives Figure A1 graphs the predicted output in round 2 under all

conditions (two incentive conditions X three identity manipulations) The left panel shows

results for H and the right panel shows results for L As indicated by the dotted lines when

caste is not revealed the tournament boosts output by 25 for H and 28 for L above

performance under piece rates (p lt 05) As shown by both the dark and light solid lines when

caste is made public there is no performance boost for H or L In fact in Revealed Segregated

the tournament incentive reduces L output The decline is 16 mazes (p-value lt 001) which

corresponds to a 38 decline from the predicted level under Piece-rate control These results are

robust to controls for classmdashsee Table 2 column 3

Figure A1 Predicted Output in Round 2 Piece Rate versus Tournament Incentives

Note Predicted output is based on Table 4 column (3) which controls for the participantrsquos grade in

school previous exposure to mazes and number of other participants known in the session Bars show

standard errors

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

45

Table A1 shows the effect of the identity manipulations holding constant the tournament

incentive The first three columns show the results for the full sample and columns 4-6 shows

the results for the subsample that excludes participants who solved zero mazes It is easy to see

that in the full sample the treatment effect of revealing caste is always negative The declines

are much steeper for L than for H For example compared to the control Revealed Segregated

decreases output by 34 for H and by 60 for L The treatment effects are only slightly

reduced in the subsample

Discussion

In the tournaments we cannot disentangle context effects on performance from strategic

responses to equilibrium play The finding that making caste public eliminates the positive

response to tournament incentives is consistent with an interpretation based on context effects

ie when caste is salient H may feel ldquoWhy tryrdquo and L may feel ldquoI canrsquot or donrsquot dare to

excelrdquo But there are three additional possible explanations which we discuss next

Strategic responses to equilibrium play As an example suppose we make the plausible

assumption that H believe that low-caste boys will choose not to compete because for an L to

win against an H would violate the traditional caste order Or suppose we assume that H believe

that low-caste boys cannot compete effectively since they are less able than high-caste boys

Under either assumption the H-segregated tournaments would have low expected returns to

effort compared to the control tournaments because the participants know they are competing

against five H boys

Social preferences The 30 high-caste boys in Revealed Segregated were 20 Thakurs 8

Brahmins and 2 Vaishyas The overall distribution in the treatment was mirrored in the

individual sessions Thus a high-caste boy in Revealed Segregated did not find himself among

boys of only his own specific caste Earlier experiments in the state of Uttar Pradesh reveal

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

46

solidarity only among men of the same specific high-status castes (Hoff et al 2011) not among

men of different specific high-status castes The experiments also reveal no solidarity among

low-caste men even when they are from the same caste Evidence from Fehr et al (2008)

supports the view that many high-caste men are averse to disadvantageous inequality In a

tournament someone must win and we have no evidence from any study of social preferences

that if someone must win a high-caste man would not wish to be the person that won

Work norms Bandiera et al (2005) find evidence from personnel data that workersrsquo

productivity is much lower under a relative incentive scheme than under piece rates In the

relative incentive scheme in their study workersrsquo daily pay depended on the ratio of individual

productivity to average productivity among all coworkers on the same field and day whereas

under piece rates individual pay depended only on individual productivity Thus the harder a

person worked the lower the pay of his coworkers The authors find that workers internalize the

externality of high productivity by working less only when they can monitor others and be

monitored by them Thus the finding reflects work norms enforced by sanctions not social

preferences

It seems to us unlikely that work norms explain the declines in performance in

tournaments when caste is revealed First the tournament incentive is a one-shot winner-take-

all incentive The person with the best performance wins and all others lose By working less a

participant does not increase the earnings of his coworkers as would occur under the scheme

analyzed in Bandiera et al unless he completely forgoes a payoff Further Bandiera et al find

that the decline occurs only when workers can monitor each other In our experiment payoffs

were not public each participant was given his payment such that others did not know the

amount at the time of giving and instructions prior to the game (ldquoThis [the earnings from the

piece rate incentive in round 1 and from tournament in round 2] will be given to every child in an

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

47

envelope after the games are overrdquo) tried to make this clear However it is possible we did not

make it clear enough We cannot rule out that participants feared social sanctions from others in

their group if they won the tournament

We comment finally on the question of work norms in Hardoi The high castes in the

villages shun positions in which they work for others this is considered a violation of their

honor High-caste individuals work for others only if they leave the village to work in the towns

in other districts there is essentially no industry in Hardoi district The issue of work norms in

firms thus does not arise for either high or low castes in Hardoi

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

48

Table A1 Effects of Making Identity Public in Mixed and Segregated Sessions under the Tournament Incentive

Output per round full sample

Output per round excluding

participants who solved zero

mazes

H L

Caste gap

significant

H L

Caste gap

significant

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Estimated treatment effect of

Revealed Mixed -142 -217

-182 -154

(079) (077)

(075) (077)

Revealed Segregated -225 -397

-213 -352

(092) (075) (086) (075)

Mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

663 659

711 659

Effect of Revealed Mixed as

of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed

-21 -33

-26 -23

Effect of Revealed Segregated

as of mean outcome

in Caste Not Revealed -34 -60 -30 -53

Note Cluster-robust standard errors are in parentheses The mean output per round pools both rounds All values reported here can be

derived from the regressions in Table 2 effects in columns (1)-(3) from regression (2) and effects in columns (4)-(6) from regression (4)

However it is easier to obtain the treatment effects and their standard errors by running regressions in which the tournament is the

incentive in the baseline case plt001 plt005 plt01

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

49

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S1 Test of Year and Month Effects on Output in the Piece Rate-Control Treatment

Variables

Round

Score

High 031

(041)

Dummy_March03 -017

(057)

Dummy_March05 016

(046)

Constant 428

(042)

R2 0004

N 312

Notes The table reports data for the 156 subjects under the control condition with piece rate incentives in

both rounds Dummy_March03 indicates that a session was held in March 2003 and dummy_March05

indicates that a session was held in March 2005 The omitted category are sessions held in January 2003

60 subjects participated in January 2003 36 subjects in March 2003 and 60 subjects in March 2005

Standard errors clustered at the level of the individual are in parentheses plt001 plt005 plt01

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

50

Supporting Table--Not for Publication

Table S2 Determinants of Failure to Learn How to Solve a Maze

Additional regressors

With individual

characteristics With individual and family characteristics

(1) (2)

High 228 218

(106) (113)

Identity condition 264 275

(102) (103)

Identity conditionH -389 -434

(120) (124)

Grade in school 002 007

(038) (038)

Previous exposure to mazes -005 -097

(057) (076)

Number of other participants known -020 -015

(021) (021)

Mothers education Є(06)

-004

(056)

Mothers education ge 6

004

(052)

Fathers education Є(06)

080

(077)

Fathers education ge 6

130

(065)

Mother employed outside home

-033

(105)

Father not a day laborer

-018

(056)

Constant -451 -524

(100) (118)

Chi square 1492 3057

N 538 464 Notes This table is based on a logit regression The dependent variable is the log odds of failure Failure=1 if a

participant has zero output in both rounds 0 otherwise Robust standard errors are in parentheses plt001

plt005 plt01

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options

51

HIGHLIGHTS

In a randomized experiment high- and low- caste boys solve mazes under incentives

When caste is not revealed low-caste boys solve mazes as well as high-caste boys

Revealing caste in mixed-caste groups creates a caste gap favoring the high caste

Segregationmdasha marker of high-caste dominancemdashreduces even high-caste performance

Productivity is sensitive to social setting which opens up new policy options