Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Testing Theories about Ethnic Markers

Ingroup Accent Facilitates Coordination, Not Cooperation

  • Published:
Human Nature Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In recent years, evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists have debated whether ethnic markers have evolved to solve adaptive problems related to interpersonal coordination or to interpersonal cooperation. In the present study, we add to this debate by exploring how individuals living in a modern society utilize the accents of unfamiliar individuals to make social decisions in hypothetical economic games that measure interpersonal trust, generosity, and coordination. A total of 4603 Danish participants completed a verbal-guise study administered over the Internet. Participants listened to four speakers (two local and two nonlocal) and played a hypothetical Dictator Game, Trust Game, and Coordination Game with each of them. The results showed that participants had greater faith in coordinating successfully with local speakers than with nonlocal speakers. The coordination effect was strong for individuals living in the same city as the particular speakers and weakened as the geographical distance between the participants and the speakers grew. Conversely, the results showed that participants were not more generous toward or more trusting of local speakers compared with nonlocal speakers. Taken together, the results suggest that humans utilize ethnic markers of unfamiliar individuals to coordinate behavior rather than to cooperate.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. As a means of effectively discriminating between ingroup and outgroup individuals, accents strike a functional balance between allowing detection of cheaters (a given accent typically cannot be faked in a fleeting encounter) and allowing the accommodation of new individuals into the ethnic group (an accent can typically be acquired through extensive exposure to it). See Cohen 2012.

  2. Experimental studies using behavioral responses to adult speakers’ accents are rare. Using natural experiments with cinema audiences, however, two studies have shown that behavioral compliance to public solicitations (i.e., to fill out questionnaires) made over the cinema’s loudspeakers were affected by the solicitor’s language and accent. In Wales, Bourhis and Giles (1976) found significantly greater compliance with the solicitations when they were made by ingroup speakers as compared to outgroup speakers. Kristansen and Giles (1992) replicated this finding in a Danish sample, but only with adult audiences. Young audiences returned more questionnaires when the solicitations were made by a nonlocal (Standard) speaker.

  3. In 2013, Denmark ranked ninth (of 187 countries) on UNDP’s Human Development Index adjusted for inequality, and Denmark has a Gini coefficient of about 0.25—one of the smallest in the world (see Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2013; United Nations Development Programme 2013).

  4. In essence, this meant that only a fraction of the respondents would listen to locally accented speakers in the most narrow sociolectual linguistic sense. Most participants instead listened to two evidently nonlocal speakers (i.e., speakers living more than 150 km from the participant’s region of origin) and to two speakers with accents that approximated the accent spoken by the participant (i.e., speakers living less than 150 km from the participant’s region of origin).

  5. The most common verbal descriptions made by the speakers include descriptions of children playing on a seesaw, children playing with a ball, children climbing a tree, and the time indicated by a large clock.

  6. Answer labels: (1) No, I don’t think we would; (2) That would probably be completely random; (3) Well, I guess we might; (4) Yes, I’m pretty sure we would; (5) Yes, definitely.

  7. Answer labels: (1) Definitely not; (2) Most likely not; (3) Probably not; (4) Neutral; (5) Probably yes; (6) Most likely yes; (7) Definitely yes.

  8. Two of the sites (www.bt.dk and www.politiken.dk) convey general news (both sites have nearly one million unique users a month each); one site (www.tdc.dk) conveys IT-support and news (700,000 users); one site (www.videnskab.dk) conveys science news (100,000 users); two sites (www.oestrogen.dk and www.femina.dk) specialize in fashion and lifestyles for women (100,000 users each); and one smaller site (www.studerende.au.dk) conveys news for students at the local university (<10,000 users).

  9. More specifically, if participants were born and raised in Jutland, they were assigned two Herning speakers (ingroup) and two Copenhagen speakers (outgroup). Assignments of the particular speakers from each speaker category were random. Similarly, if participants were born and raised in the larger Copenhagen region, they were assigned two Copenhagen speakers and two Herning speakers (outgroup). Finally, if participants were born and raised in Zealand but outside the larger Copenhagen region, they were assigned two Naestved speakers (ingroup) and two Herning speakers (outgroup). Participants born and raised outside the study regions (N = 618) could not be assigned local speakers. They were assigned two Herning speakers and two Copenhagen speakers.

  10. We cannot report standardized regression coefficients (betas) because we also use cluster robust standard errors.

  11. Additional analyses show that in both games, the effect of perceptions of trustworthiness is significantly stronger than the effect of dominance (p < 0.001).

  12. Analyses of the actual choices in the Coordination Game, however, show that the assumption that it is easier to coordinate with ingroup members is false. In the overall sample, the restaurant “Odysseus” constitutes a focal point, with 68% of the sample choosing this restaurant. However, individuals living in the same city as the speaker are slightly more uncoordinated in their choices, with 65% choosing “Odysseus.” This difference is marginally significant (p < 0.10). The disparity between assumptions and actual success underlines that this bias is driven by intuition rather than reason.

References

  • Ahmed, A. M. (2007). Group identity, social distance and intergroup bias. Journal of Economic Psychology, 28, 324–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aiello, L., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (1993). Neocortex size, group size, and the evolution of language. Current Anthropology, 34, 184–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alesina, A., & La Ferrara, E. (2002). Who trusts others? Journal of Public Economics, 85, 207–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Amir, O., Rand, D. G., & Gal, Y. K. (2012). Economic games on the internet: the effect of $1 stakes. PloS One, 7, e31461.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Antal, T., Ohtsuki, H., Wakeley, J., Taylor, P. D., & Nowak, M. A. (2009). Evolution of cooperation by phenotypic similarity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 106, 8597–8600.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Apicella, C. L., Marlowe, F. W., Fowler, J. H., & Christakis, N. A. (2012). Social networks and cooperation in hunter-gatherers. Nature, 481, 497–501.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Axelrod, R., & Hamilton, W. D. (1981). The evolution of cooperation. Science, 211, 1390–1396.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bacharach, M., & Bernasconi, M. (1997). The variable frame theory of focal points: an experimental study. Games and Economic Behavior, 19, 1–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, M. C. (2001). The atoms of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barth, F. (1969). Introduction. In F. Barth (Ed.), Ethnic groups and boundaries (pp. 9–38). Boston: Little, Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bateson, M., Nettle, D., & Roberts, G. (2006). Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting. Biology Letters, 2, 412–414.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ben-Ner, A., Kramer, A., & Levy, O. (2008). Economic and hypothetical dictator game experiments: incentive effects at the individual level. Journal of Socio-Economics, 37, 1775–1784.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ben-Ner, A., McCall, B. P., Stephane, M., & Wang, H. (2009). Identity and in-group/out-group differentiation in work and giving behaviors: experimental evidence. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 72, 153–170.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berg, J., Dickhaut, J., & McCabe, K. (1995). Trust, reciprocity, and social history. Games and Economic Behavior, 10, 122–142.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernhard, H., Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2006a). Group affiliation and altruistic norm enforcement. American Economic Review, 96, 217–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernhard, H., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2006b). Parochial altruism in humans. Nature, 442, 912–915.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boehm, C. (2000). Conflict and the evolution of social control. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7, 79–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourhis, R. Y., & Giles, H. (1976). The Language of cooperation in Wales: a field study. Language Sciences, 42, 13–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2004). Persistent parochialism: trust and exclusion in ethnic networks. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 55, 1–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1987). The evolution of ethnic markers. Cultural Anthropology, 2, 65–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2005). The origin and evolution of cultures. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, R., Gintis, H., & Bowles, S. (2010). Coordinated punishment of defectors sustains cooperation and can proliferate when rare. Science, 328, 617–620.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, B. R., & Turner, J. C. (1979). The criss-cross categorization effect in the intergroup discrimination. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 18, 371–383.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castillo, M., & Petrie, R. (2010). Discrimination in the lab: does information trump appearance? Games and Economic Behavior, 68, 50–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chambers, J. K., Trudgill, P., & Schilling-Estes, N. (2002). The handbook of language variation and change. Malden: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapais, B. (2010). The deep structure of human society: primate origins and evolution. In P. M. Kappeler & J. B. Silk (Eds.), Mind the gap: tracing the origins of human universals (pp. 19–51). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Y., & Li, S. X. (2009). Group identity and social preferences. American Economic Review, 99, 431–457.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, E. (2012). The evolution of tag-based cooperation in humans: the case for accent. Current Anthropology, 53, 588–616.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, E., & Haun, D. (2013). The development of tag-based cooperation via a socially acquired trait. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34, 230–235.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Colman, A. M. (1997). Salience and focusing in pure coordination games. Journal of Economic Methodology, 4, 61–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Colman, A. M. (2003). Cooperation, psychological game theory, and limitations of rationality in social interaction. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26, 139–198.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, R. L., & Fishman, J. A. (1974). The study of language attitudes. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1974, 5–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Cremer, D., & Van Vugt, M. (1999). Social identification effects in social dilemmas: a transformation of motives. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 871–893.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeChamps, J. C., & Doise, W. (1978). Crossed category memberships in intergroup relations. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Differentiation between social groups (pp. 141–158). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeScioli, P., & Kurzban, R. (2013). A solution to the mysteries of morality. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 477–496.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, J. (2009). Language and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Efferson, C., Lalive, R., & Fehr, E. (2008). The coevolution of cultural groups and ingroup favoritism. Science, 321, 1844–1849.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ejstrup, M. (2011). Perceptionsundersøgelse af moderne danske dialekter. Ord & Sag, 31, 30–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ejstrup, M., & Hansen, G. H. (2004). Vowels in regional variants of Danish (Proceedings, FONETIK 2004). Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm: University.

  • Esteban, J., Mayoral, L., & Ray, D. (2012). Ethnicity and conflict: theory and facts. Science, 336, 858–864.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Falk, A., & Zehnder, C. (2013). A city-wide experiment on trust discrimination. Journal of Public Economics, 100, 15–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Falk, C. F., Heine, S. J., & Takemura, K. (2014). Cultural variation in the minimal group effect. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45, 265–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferraro, P. J., & Cummings, R. G. (2007). Cultural diversity, discrimination, and economic outcomes: an experimental analysis. Econommic Inquiry, 45, 217–232.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fershtman, C., & Gneezy, U. (2001). Discrimination in a segmented society: an experimental approach. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116, 351–377.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fish, F. E. (1995). Kinematics of ducklings swimming in formation: consequences of position. Journal of Experimental Zoology, 273, 1–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Forsythe, R., Horowitz, J. L., Savin, N. E., & Sefton, M. (1994). Fairness in simple bargaining experiments. Games and Economic Behavior, 6, 347–369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gesthuizen, M., van der Meer, T., & Scheepers, P. (2009). Ethnic diversity and social capital in Europe: tests of Putnam’s thesis in European countries. Scandinavian Political Studies, 32, 121–142.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giles, H., & Bourhis, R. Y. (1976). Methodological Issues in dialect perception: some social psychological perspectives. Anthropological Linguistics, 18, 294–304.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giles, H., & Powesland, P. F. (1975). Speech style and social evaluation. London: Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gillis, M. T., & Hettler, P. L. (2007). Hypothetical and real incentives in the ultimatum game and Andreoni’s public goods game: an experimental study. Eastern Economic Journal, 33, 491–510.

  • Gil-White, F. (2001). Are ethnic groups biological “species” to the human brain? Essentialism in our cognition of some social categories. Current Anthropology, 42, 515–554.

  • Gluszek, A., & Dovidio, J. F. (2010). The way they speak: a social psychological perspective on the stigma of nonnative accents in communication. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 214–237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guionnet, S., Nadel, J., Bertasi, E., Sperduti, M., Delaveau, P., & Fossati, P. (2012). Reciprocal imitation: toward a neural basis of social interaction. Cerebral Cortex, 22, 971–978.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hari, R., & Kujala, M. V. (2009). Brain basis of human social interaction: from concepts to brain imaging. Physiological Review, 89, 453–479.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hartstone, M., & Augoustinos, M. (1995). The minimal group paradigm: categorization into two versus three groups. European Journal of Social Psychology, 25, 179–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hero, R. (2003). Social capital and racial inequality in America. Perspectives on Politics, 1, 113–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herschenshon, J. (2007). Language development and age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hewstone, M., Rubin, M., & Willis, H. (2002). Intergroup bias. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 575–604.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hill, K. R., Walker, R. S., Božičević, M., Eder, J., Headland, T., Hewlett, B., Hurtado, M. A., Marlowe, F., Wiessneer, P., & Wood, B. (2011). Co-residence patterns in hunter-gatherer societies show unique human social structure. Science, 331, 1286–1289.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman, E., McCabe, K., & Smith, V. L. (1996). Social distance and other-regarding behavior in dictator games. American Economic Review, 86, 653–660.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holland, J., Silva, A. S., & Mace, R. (2012). Lost letter measure of variation in altruisitc behaviour in 20 neighbourhoods. PloS One, 7, e43294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hooghe, M., Reeskens, T., Stolle, D., & Trappers, A. (2009). Ethnic diversity and generalized trust in Europe: a cross-national multilevel study. Comparative Political Studies, 42, 198–223.

  • Hughes, S. M., Harrison, M. A., & Gallup, G. G., Jr. (2002). The sound of symmetry: voice as a marker of developmental instability. Evolution and Human Behavior, 23, 173–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kay, A., & Rissing, S. W. (2005). Division of foraging labor in ants can mediate demands for food and safety. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 58, 165–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kinzler, K. D., Dupoux, E., & Spelke, E. S. (2007). The native language of social cognition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 104, 12577–12580.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kinzler, K. D., Shutts, K., DeJesus, J., & Spelke, E. S. (2009). Accent trumps race in guiding children’s social preferences. Social Cognition, 27, 623–634.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kinzler, K. D., Corriveau, K. H., & Harris, P. L. (2011). Children’s selective trust in native-accented speakers. Developmental Science, 14, 106–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kinzler, K. D., Dupoux, E., & Spelke, E. S. (2012). ‘Native’ objects and collaborators: infants’ object choices and acts of giving reflect favor for native over foreign speakers. Journal of Cognition and Development, 13, 67–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koopmans, R., & Rebers, S. (2009). Collective action in culturally similar and dissimilar groups: an experiment on parochialism, conditional cooperation, and their linkages. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 201–211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koopmans, R., & Veit, S. (2014). Cooperation in ethnically diverse neighborhoods: a lost-letter experiment. Political Psychology, 35, 379–400.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kristansen, T., & Giles, H. (1992). Compliance-gaining as a function of accent: public requests in varieties of Danish. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2, 17–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kristiansen, T. (2009). The macro-level social meanings of late-modern Danish accents. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 41, 167–192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhl, P. K., Stevens, E., Hayashi, A., Deguchi, T., Kiritani, S., & Iverson, P. (2006). Infants show a facilitation effect for native language phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months. Developmental Science, 9, 13–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, S. L., & Stiner, M. (2007). Paleolithic ornaments: implications for cognition, demography and identity. Diogenes, 54, 40–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kurzban, R., Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (2001). Can race be erased? Coalitional computation and social categorization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 98, 15387–15392.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Letki, N. (2008). Does diversity erode social cohesion? Social capital and race in British neighborhoods. Political Studies, 56, 99–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • LeVine, R. A., & Campbell, D. T. (1972). Ethnocentrism: theories of conflict, ethnic attitudes, and group behavior. New York: Wiley.

  • Leyens, J. P., Yzerbyt, V., & Schadron, G. (1994). Stereotypes and social cognition. London: Sage.

  • Lopez, J. C., & Lopez, D. (1985). Killer whales (Orcinus orca) of Patagonia, and their behavior of intentional stranding while hunting nearshore. Journal of Mammalogy, 66, 181–183.

  • Marras, S., Batty, R. S., & Domenici, P. (2011). Information transfer and antipredator maneuvers in schooling herring. Adaptive Behavior, 20, 44–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marwick, B. (2003). Pleistocene exchange networks as evidence for the evolution of language. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 13, 67–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marwick, B. (2005). The interpersonal origins of language: social and linguistic implications of an archaeology approach to language evolution. Language and the Human Sciences, 1, 197–224.

    Google Scholar 

  • Masuda, N., & Ohtsuki, H. (2007). Tag-based indirect reciprocity by incomplete social information. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 274, 689–695.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McBrearty, S., & Brooks, A. S. (2000). The revolution that wasn’t: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. Journal of Human Evolution, 39, 453–563.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McElreath, R., Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2003). Shared norms and the evolution of ethnic markers. Current Anthropology, 44, 122–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mehta, J., Starmer, C., & Sugden, R. (1994). The nature of salience: an experimental investigation of pure coordination games. Amercan Economic Review, 84, 658–673.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mifune, N., Hashimoto, H., & Yamagishi, T. (2010). Altruism toward in-group members as a reputation mechanism. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31, 109–117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moya, C. (2013). Evolved priors for ethnolinguistic categorization: a case study from the Quechua-Aymara boundary in the Peruvian Altiplano. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34, 265–272.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nettle, D. (1999). Linguistic diversity. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nettle, D., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (1997). Social markers and the evolution of reciprocal exchange. Current Anthropology, 38, 93–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nettle, D., Pepper, G. V., Jobling, R., & Schroeder, K. B. (2014). Being there: a brief visit to a neighbourhood induces the social attitudes of that neighbourhood. PeerJ, 2, e236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oda, R., Niwa, Y., Honma, A., & Hiraishi, K. (2011). An eye-like painting enhances the expectation of a good reputation. Evolution and Human Behavior, 32, 166–171.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oosterhof, N. N., & Todorov, A. (2008). The functional basis of face evaluation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 11087–11092.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2013). Crisis squeezes income and puts pressure on inequality and poverty: New results from the OECD Income Distribution Database. URL: http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2013-Inequality-and-Poverty-8p.pdf

  • Pietraszewski, D., & Schwartz, A. (2014a). Evidence that accent is a dimension of social categorization, not a byproduct of perceptual salience, familiarity, or ease-of-processing. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35, 43–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pietraszewski, D., & Schwartz, A. (2014b). Evidence that accent is a dedicated dimension of social categorization, not a byproduct of coalitional categorization. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35, 51–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pietraszewski, D., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2014). The content of our cooperation, not the color of our skin: an alliance detection system regulates categorization by coalition and race, but not sex. PloS One, 9, e88534.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, R. (2007). E Pluribus Unum: diversity and community in the twenty-first century: the Johan Skytte Prize lecture. Scandinavian Political Studies, 30, 134–167.

  • Puts, D. A., Gaulin, S. J. C., & Verdolini, K. (2006). Dominance and the evolution of sexual dimorphism in human voice pitch. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 283–296.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riolo, R. L., Cohen, M. D., & Axelrod, R. (2001). Evolution of cooperation without reciprocity. Nature, 414, 441–443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, G., & Sherratt, T. N. (2002). Does similarity breed cooperation? Nature, 418, 499–500.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schelling, T. (1960). The strategy of conflict. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

  • Scherer, K. R. (1972). Judging personality from voice: a cross-cultural approach to an old issue in interpersonal perception. Journal of Personality, 40, 191–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scherer, K. R. (1986). Vocal affect expression: a review and a model for future research. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 143–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sell, A., Bryant, G. A., Cosmides, L., Tooby, J., Sznycer, D., von Rueden, C., Krauss, A., & Gurven, M. (2010). Adaptations in humans for assessing physical strength from the voice. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 277, 3509–3518.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shinada, M., Yamagishi, T., & Ohmura, Y. (2004). False friends are worse than bitter enemies: “Altruistic” punishment of in-group members. Evolution and Human Behavior, 25, 379–393.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shutts, K., Kinzler, K. D., McKee, C. B., & Spelke, E. S. (2009). Social information guides infants’ selection of foods. Journal of Cognition and Development, 10, 1–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, B. (2006). Social identity and cooperation in social dilemmas. Rationality and Society, 18, 443–470.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, E. A. (2010). Communication and coolective action: language and the evolution of human cooperation. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31, 231–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stander, P. E. (1992). Cooperative hunting in lions: the role of the individual. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 29, 445–454.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stolle, D., Soroka, S., & Johnston, R. (2008). When does diversity erode trust? Neighborhood diversity, interpersonal trust and the mediating effect of social interactions. Political Studies, 56, 57–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sugden, R. (1995). A theory of focal points. The Economic Journal, 105, 533–550.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Summerville, A., & Chartier, C. R. (2013). Behavior Research Methods, 45, 116–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tajfel, H., Billig, M., Bundy, R., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization in intergroup behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 149–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tanis, M., & Postmes, T. (2005). A social identity approach to trust: interpersonal perception, group membership and trusting behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 413–424.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thornhill, N. (1993). The natural history of inbreeding and outbreeding: Theoretical and empirical perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  • Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: the origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 675–735.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (2010). Groups in mind: the coalitional roots of war and morality. In H. Høgh-Olesen (Ed.), Human morality and sociality: evolutionary and comparative perspectives (pp. 191–234). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

  • Trivers, R. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trudgill, P. (1974). Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2013). The rise of the South: Human progress in a diverse world. Human Development Report (summary). URL: http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR2013_EN_Summary.pdf

  • Van den Berghe, P. L. (1981). The ethnic phenomenon. Westport: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warring, T. M. (2012). Cooperation dynamics in a multiethnic society. A case study from Tamil Nadu. Current Anthropology, 53, 642–649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yamagishi, T., & Mifune, N. (2008). Does shared group membership promote altruism? Fear, greed, and reputation. Rationality and Society, 20, 5–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yamagishi, T., Jin, N., & Kiyonari, T. (1999). Bounded generalized reciprocity: ingroup boasting and ingroup favoritism. Advances in Group Processes, 16, 161–197.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamagishi, T., Makimura, Y., Foddy, M., Matsuda, M., Kiyonari, T., & Platow, J. M. (2005). Comparisons of Australians and Japanese on group-based cooperation. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 8, 173–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zuckerman, M., & Driver, R. E. (1989). What sounds beautiful is good: the vocal attractiveness stereotype. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 13, 67–82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Aarhus University, Bartholins Allé 9, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark

    Niels Holm Jensen & Henrik Høgh-Olesen

  2. Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Michael Bang Petersen

  3. Danish School of Media and Jounalism, Aarhus, Denmark

    Michael Ejstrup

Authors
  1. Niels Holm Jensen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michael Bang Petersen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Henrik Høgh-Olesen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Michael Ejstrup
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Niels Holm Jensen.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

ESM 1

(DOCX 101 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jensen, N.H., Petersen, M.B., Høgh-Olesen, H. et al. Testing Theories about Ethnic Markers. Hum Nat 26, 210–234 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-015-9229-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-015-9229-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation