Egoism and Altruism in Intergroup Conflict

Simon Varaine (), Raùl Magni-Berton (), Ismaël Benslimane and Paolo Crosetto
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Simon Varaine: PACTE - Pacte, Laboratoire de sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes - IEPG - Sciences Po Grenoble-UGA - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes
Raùl Magni-Berton: ESPOL-LAB - ESPOL-LAB - ESPOL - European School of Political and Social Sciences / École Européenne de Sciences Politiques et Sociales - ICL - Institut Catholique de Lille - UCL - Université catholique de Lille
Ismaël Benslimane: UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes

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Abstract: Studies have shown that intergroup conflict may result from two distinct human motives: the desire to obtain personal retributions from conflict ( egoism), and the desire to sacrifice for the benefit of the ingroup ( parochial altruism). Yet, the relative strength of these motives is open to debate. In this study, we compare behaviors in two Intergroup Prisoner's Dilemmas (IPD), which respectively capture altruistic and egoistic motives to generate conflict. Egoistic motives result in about 40% more conflict than altruistic motives. Yet, parochial altruism generates more conflict when three conditions are gathered: i) other ingroup members are parochial altruists, ii) the outgroup is aggressive and iii) the outgroup is rich. Implications regarding the diverging structural causes of terrorism and civil wars are discussed.

Keywords: Parochial altruism; Egoism; Intergroup prisoner dilemma; Intergroup conflict; Terrorism; Civil war (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-gth
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Published in Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2024, 68 (2-3), pp.348-380. ⟨10.1177/00220027231164928⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: Egoism and Altruism in Intergroup Conflict (2024)
Working Paper: Egoism and altruism in intergroup conflict (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04063510

DOI: 10.1177/00220027231164928

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