TY - JOUR
T1 - The evolution of extreme cooperation via shared dysphoric experiences
AU - Whitehouse, Harvey
AU - Jong, Jonathan
AU - Buhrmester, Michael D.
AU - Gómez, Ángel
AU - Bastian, Brock
AU - Kavanagh, Christopher M.
AU - Newson, Martha
AU - Matthews, Miriam
AU - Lanman, Jonathan A.
AU - McKay, Ryan
AU - Gavrilets, Sergey
N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2017. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2017/3/14
Y1 - 2017/3/14
N2 - Willingness to lay down one's life for a group of non-kin, well documented historically and ethnographically, represents an evolutionary puzzle. Building on research in social psychology, we develop a mathematical model showing how conditioning cooperation on previous shared experience can allow individually costly pro-group behavior to evolve. The model generates a series of predictions that we then test empirically in a range of special sample populations (including military veterans, college fraternity/sorority members, football fans, martial arts practitioners, and twins). Our empirical results show that sharing painful experiences produces "identity fusion" - a visceral sense of oneness - which in turn can motivate self-sacrifice, including willingness to fight and die for the group. Practically, our account of how shared dysphoric experiences produce identity fusion helps us better understand such pressing social issues as suicide terrorism, holy wars, sectarian violence, gang-related violence, and other forms of intergroup conflict.
AB - Willingness to lay down one's life for a group of non-kin, well documented historically and ethnographically, represents an evolutionary puzzle. Building on research in social psychology, we develop a mathematical model showing how conditioning cooperation on previous shared experience can allow individually costly pro-group behavior to evolve. The model generates a series of predictions that we then test empirically in a range of special sample populations (including military veterans, college fraternity/sorority members, football fans, martial arts practitioners, and twins). Our empirical results show that sharing painful experiences produces "identity fusion" - a visceral sense of oneness - which in turn can motivate self-sacrifice, including willingness to fight and die for the group. Practically, our account of how shared dysphoric experiences produce identity fusion helps us better understand such pressing social issues as suicide terrorism, holy wars, sectarian violence, gang-related violence, and other forms of intergroup conflict.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85015273738&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/srep44292
DO - 10.1038/srep44292
M3 - Article
C2 - 28290499
AN - SCOPUS:85015273738
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 7
SP - 1
EP - 10
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
M1 - 44292
ER -