How group loyalty and helpfulness determine our conflict behavior

Max Planck researchers develop a new measurement tool 

To the Point:

• Ingroup favoritism: A new study shows that helpfulness toward one's own group and disadvanting against outgroups are related.
• Behavioural tests: The research team developed a new method to measure both behaviors independently.
• Conflict experience: both tendencies, altruism and parochialism, affect our behavior in intergroup conflict.Whether we help others or not depends on our own experiences with conflict. Our attitude toward other groups is more flexible than previously assumed—and depends on how threatening we perceive them to be.

Why do we often act helpfully toward members of our own group while, at the same time, disadvantaging those outside it? To answer this question, a research team including Hannes Rusch and Isabel Thielmann of Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law has developed a new instrument that, for the first time, allows researchers to measure altruism (helpfulness) and parochialism (ingroup favoritism) independently of one another. 

In collaboration with researchers from the Universities of Vienna and Boston, Rusch and Thielmann conducted five extensive studies involving more than 1,100 participants from very different social contexts, including German soccer fans, supporters of political parties in the United States, and members of indigenous communities in Ethiopia. In a series of economic experiments, participants made decisions that led to real financial advantages or disadvantages for others.

The researchers combined two existing behavioral tests into a single measurement tool. The first test captures how willing a person is to help others, even when doing so involves a personal cost (“altruistic behavior”). The second, newly developed test measures how strongly a person favors their own group or disadvantages other groups (“parochial behavior”). The team applied these two tests in a variety of social groups and across different cultural and real-world conflict contexts.

Using the new method , the researchers were able, for the first time, to measure these two forms of behavior independently of each other. The measures they combined – the individual social value orientation (iSVO), which captures altruistic preferences toward individual others, and the newly developed group social value orientation (gSVO), which reflects preferences for the wellbeing of one’s own group relative to other groups – provide insight into why people sometimes harm outgroups while helping their ingroup. 

That this new measurement approach works as intended marks a major success for the research team. Until now, scientists have only had one-dimensional methods at their disposal for investigating such social behaviors. 

“With the new instrument, future research can more precisely analyze how individual altruism and parochialism interact within a person. This enhances our understanding of the origins and dynamics of real conflicts,” explain Rusch and Thielmann.

Altruism toward one’s own group is linked to personal conflict experience

The study reveals that both tendencies, altruism and parochialism, affect our behavior in intergroup conflict. However, they do so in different ways and depend on distinct factors. Helping one’s own group (altruism), for example, increases with actual conflict experience, such as in people who have personally experienced violence or threats.

By contrast, the tendency to disadvantage outgroups (parochialism) depends primarily on the subjective perception of how intense a conflict is. Contrary to several previous theories, parochialism can vary toward different outgroups. In other words, the extent to which people discriminate against others depends on which particular group they are dealing with. Earlier models often assumed uniform hostility toward all outgroups.

“Our study shows for the first time that parochialism depends on how strongly a conflict with an outgroup is subjectively perceived. In principle, someone might be xenophobic toward people of another nationality while being xenophile toward members of another religion. The key seems to be less about whether others belong to an outgroup, and more about where conflicts are perceived to exist,” summarize Rusch and Thielmann.

According to the authors, further research will be needed to clarify more precisely how the strength of identification with one’s own group and other contextual factors influence behavior in conflict situations.