Evolutionarily stable in-group favoritism and out-group spite in intergroup conflict

Kai Konrad and Florian Morath

Munich Reprints in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study conflict between two groups of individuals. Using Schaffer`s (1988) concept of evolutionary stability we provide an evolutionary underpinning for in-group altruism combined with spiteful behavior towards members of the rival out-group. We characterize the set of evolutionarily stable combinations of in-group favoritism and out-group spite and find that an increase in in-group altruism can be balanced by a decrease in spiteful behavior towards the out-group.

Keywords: altruism; spite; in-group favoritism; conflict; evolutionary stability; indirect evolutionary approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-gth
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Published in Journal of Theoretical Biology 306(2012): pp. 61-67

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https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/13963/1/SSRN-id1881550.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Evolutionarily stable in-group favoritism and out-group spite in intergroup conflict (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lmu:muenar:13963

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