Identity Uncertainty

About this event

Social identity is not always directly observable: individuals may choose to mask identity markers, and these strategic decisions may or may not succeed in shifting others’ beliefs about their identity. We study the economic and social effects of identity concealment in the context of caste in India—a social identity that is not visibly discernible. We paired high- and low-caste men for data entry tasks and randomly assigned these pairs to interact under one of three conditions: with knowledge of full names, including caste-distinctive surnames (Revealed); with first names only, giving participants the freedom to hide or reveal identity (First Name Only); or with instructions to keep caste identity hidden (Hidden). The First Name Only and Hidden conditions have strong negative effects on whether a participant correctly guesses their partner's caste at endline, and increase uncertainty in their guesses. These identity-concealment conditions reduce trust and weaken social relations, with mixed effects on productivity. Additional analyses suggest that the key mechanism is uncertainty about caste identity. Our findings are contrary to the conventional wisdom that group boundaries hinder social relations—we find that disclosure of group identity brings partners together.