The Big Tent

This repository contains data and R code necessary to reproduce results reported in Karpiński et al. (2021). It consists of just two files:

• the file big-tent-data.csv contains the data used in the analyses. More information about the variables is given below;
• the file data-analysis.R is an R script file with R code used in the analyses of the data.

The dataset

The data come from 8 experimental sessions, with 10 participants per session. The sessions were divided into 20 “exchange opportunities.” At each opportunity, participants could share the resources they had been endowed with with the remaining 9 participants. Sharing one’s resources with an other means establishing an “exchange relation” with them. Thus, there is a total of 8 × 20 × 10 × 9 = 14,400 unique observations in the data, each observation being an instance of participant i sharing their resources with participant j at round t of session k. The following variables are included:

• session – session identifier
• subject – subject’s identifier
• alter – alter’s identifier
• period – exchange opportunity, an integer ranging from 1 to 20
• s_cat – subject’s social category. See Details below.
• a_cat – alter’s social category. See Details below.
• dyad_type – a binary variable distinguishing between “In-group” (where the subject and alter belong to the same social category) and “Out-group” (where the subject and alter belong to different categories) dyads.
• gave – a binary variable specific to each subject-alter dyad. It is coded 1 if the subject chose to share their resources with the alter at a given exchange opportunity. Otherwise, it is coded as 0.
• received – a binary variable specific to each subject-alter dyad. It is coded 1 if the subject received resources from the alter at a given exchange opportunity. Otherwise, it is coded as 0.
• confirmed – a binary variable specific to each subject-alter dyad. It is coded 1 if the subject confirmed their willingness to share their resources with the given alter at a given exchange opportunity. See below for more details.
• gave_last – a lagged version of gave: it is coded 1 if the subject shared their resources with the alter at the previous exchange opportunity. Otherwise, it is coded as 0. Note that this variable is not defined when period == 1.
• received_last – a lagged version of received: it is coded 1 if the subject received resources from the alter at the previous exchange opportunity. Otherwise, it is coded as 0. Note that this variable is not defined when period == 1.
• confirmed_last – a lagged version of confirmed: it is coded 1 if the subject confirmed their willingness to share their resources with the alter at the previous exchange opportunity. Otherwise, it is coded as 0. Note that this variable is not defined when period == 1.

Details

Experimental design

Each experimental session consisted of two parts. In the first part, participants were divided into two categories. The assignment to the categories was on a random basis, although the subjects were led to believe that it reflected differences among them in terms of “response style.” The procedure had been developed by students of status construction processes (Ridgeway et al. 1998; Walker, Webster, and Bianchi 2011) to create purely nominal differentiation between subjects. This procedure is an adaptation of the classical minimal group design in the social identity tradition (Tajfel et al. 1971; Hogg 2006).

At the beginning of the first part, subjects were asked to fill in a short to survey designed to measure their “response styles.” The subjects were further notified that, according to “current research,” there were two broad categories of response style, labelled Q₂ and S₂, represented more or less equally in the population, and that response style was not associated with other personal characteristics. The subjects were then shown a series of pictures featuring paintings by artists Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. Each picture contained two paintings, one by each artist, and the participants were asked which of the two paintings in the pair they liked more. The “survey” contained 7 questions of this type. After filling in the survey, the subjects were informed which category of response style they belonged to. As mentioned before, the participants were assigned to the categories randomly, irrespective of their responses to the questionnaire, and the study of response style was just a cover story made up to conceal that fact.

In the second part of the experiment, subjects were given a series of opportunities to exchange or, more precisely, share their resources with other participants. More specifically, at each exchange opportunity subjects were endowed with 12 points that they could keep in their pockets or share with other subjects. Importantly, each point transferred to an other was multiplied by a constant greater than 1 (either 1.5 or 2), so that it was worth more for the recipient than for the sender. Points kept in one’s pocket did not increase their value in this way. Also, there was a constraint on how much a subject could give to an alter at a given opportunity. That is, the subject could give the alter either 0 or 6 of the 12 points that they had been endowed with. In other words, instead of being free to choose the number of points that they can share with an other, the subjects were constrained to choose between 0 and 6 points. This means that they could share their endowment with up to 2 other participants — at least at the first opportunity, because in subsequent rounds they could share with more than 2 alters, using resources earned at previous exchange opportunities for that purpose.

Giving, confirmation, and rejection

Crucially, the sharing of one’s resources with others proceeded in 2 stages. In stage 1, subjects initially selected others with whom they wanted to share their resources. In stage 2, they were asked to confirm their initial choice. In other words, at this stage they could change their mind about giving to a particular other. If they did change their mind about giving to a particular person, the 6 points that they initially wanted to send to this person would return to their pocket. In Karpiński et al. (2021), only the information about the stage 1 decision is used in the analyses, as represented by the variable gave.

Acknowledgement

Karpiński et al. (2021) use a subset of data from an experiment designed to study homophily processes in a small-group social exchange setting. The experiment is a part of a larger research project on attraction to similar others and repulsion from dissimilar others as drivers of homophily in social relations. The research is supported by a grant from National Science Centre in Poland (grant number UMO-2017/25/B/HS6/02543).

References

Hogg, Michael A. 2006. “Social Identity Theory.” In Contemporary Social Psychological Theories, edited by Peter J. Burke. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Karpiński, Zbigniew, John Skvoretz, Adam Kęska, and Dariusz Przybysz. 2021. “The Big Tent: Integrating Macro Models for Intergroup Association with Experimental Data on Exchange Relations in a Minimal Group Setting.” In Advances in Group Processes, edited by Shane R. Thye and Edward J. Lawler. Vol. 38. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited.

Ridgeway, Cecilia L., Elizabeth Heger Boyle, Kathy J. Kuipers, and Dawn T. Robinson. 1998. “How Do Status Beliefs Develop? The Role of Resources and Interactional Experience.” American Sociological Review 63 (3): 331–50.

Tajfel, Henri, Michael Billig, R. P. Bundy, and Claude Flament. 1971. “Social Categorisation and Intergroup Behaviour.” European Journal of Social Psychology 40: 149–78.

Walker, Lisa Slattery, Murray Webster, and Alison J. Bianchi. 2011. “Testing the Spread of Status Value Theory.” Social Science Research 40 (6): 1652–63. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2011.04.005.