The effects of social vs. asocial threats on group cooperation and manipulation of perceived threats.

Pat Barclay,Stephen Benard

doi:10.1017/ehs.2020.48

Pat Barclay, Stephen Benard

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2020.48

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Abstract

Individuals benefit from maintaining the well-being of their social groups and helping their groups to survive threats such as intergroup competition, harsh environments and epidemics. Correspondingly, much research shows that groups cooperate more when competing against other groups. However, 'social' threats (i.e. outgroups) should elicit stronger cooperation than 'asocial' threats (e.g. environments, diseases) because (a) social losses involve a competitor's gain and (b) a strong cooperative reaction to defend the group may deter future outgroup threats. We tested this prediction in a multiround public goods game where groups faced periodic risks of failure (i.e. loss of earnings) which could be overcome by sufficient cooperation. This threat of failure was framed as either a social threat (intergroup competition) or an asocial threat (harsh environment). We find that cooperation was higher in response to social threats than asocial threats. We also examined participants' willingness to manipulate apparent threats to the group: participants raised the perceived threat level similarly for social and asocial threats, but high-ranking participants increased the appearance of social threats more than low-ranking participants did. These results show that people treat social threats differently than asocial threats, and support previous work on leaders' willingness to manipulate perceived threats.

Highlights

When an external force threatens a group, preventing or overcoming that threat is a cooperative act that benefits all group members
The computer generated a true threat level, i.e. the risk of the group failing and everyone earning zero for that round and the previous one. Participants received their endowments of L$50 or L$80. They could pay up to L$10 to increase or decrease the announced threat level, which affected what others saw as being the threat level but not the actual risk of group failure
The high-ranking person lost her position if she kept less money than the two low-ranking people; if that happened, each low-ranking person’s probability of winning the high rank depended on their amounts kept relative to each other

Summary

Introduction

When an external force threatens a group (e.g. a hostile outgroup, natural disaster or epidemic), preventing or overcoming that threat is a cooperative act that benefits all group members. If an organism can manipulate its groupmates into perceiving that the threat is higher than it is, that organism receives higher cooperation from its groupmates, and correspondingly reduced within-group competition (Lahti & Weinstein, 2005; Simmel 1908[1955]; Willer, 2004). Such manipulation could be accomplished by reminders of past threats (e.g. Willer, 2004), ‘us vs them’ language (Bekkers, 1977), over-responses to ambiguous threats, appearances of constant vigilance or false alarm calls (non-humans: Munn, 1986), or creating actual intergroup conflict (Bekkers, 1977; Dogan et al, 2017). There is anecdotal evidence of threat-manipulation in gangs and other groups (e.g. Brewer 2001; Short & Strodtbeck, 1963) and experimental evidence showing that people – especially those possessing high rank – will initiate intergroup conflict (Dogan et al, 2017) or pay to make group threats appear worse than they are (Barclay & Benard, 2013)

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