Political Identity: Experimental Evidence on Anti-Americanism in Pakistan

We identify Pakistani men’s willingness to pay to preserve their anti-American identity using two experiments imposing clearly-specied nancial costs on anti-American expression, with minimal consequential or social considerations. In two distinct studies, one-quarter to one-third of subjects forgo payments from the U.S. government worth around one-fth of a day’s wage to avoid an identitythreatening choice: anonymously checking a box indicating gratitude toward the U.S. government. We nd sensitivity to both payment size and anticipated social context: when subjects anticipate that rejection will be observable by others, rejection falls suggesting that, for some, social image can outweigh self-image