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

Kai Konrad and Florian Morath

Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance

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)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2011-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-evo and nep-gth
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Evolutionarily stable in-group favoritism and out-group spite in intergroup conflict (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mpi:wpaper:evolutionarily_stable

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