Effects Of Intergroup Competition Research Articles

Commentary: No unique effect of intergroup competition on cooperation: non-competitive thresholds are as effective as competition between groups for increasing human cooperative behavior.

A commentary on No unique effect of intergroup competition on cooperation: non-competitive thresholds are as effective as competitions between groups for increasing human cooperative behavior by Jordan, M. R., Jordan, J. J., and Rand, D. G. (2017). Evol. Hum. Behav. 38, 102–108. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.07.005

Competition and intergroup bias: Toward a new construal process framework distinguishing competitive perceptions from competitive motivations

Research on the effects of intergroup competition has relied on various conceptual approaches and has produced inconsistent findings. Following a review of the intergroup competition literature, we propose a framework which emphasizes that the influence of intergroup competition varies primarily according to participants’ construal of potentially competitive events. We assess this via two variables: competitive intergroup perceptions (CIP), the perception that one’s ingroup and another group(s) in the current situation are attempting to gain a reward at each other’s expense; and competitive intergroup motivations (CIM), the individual desire for one’s group to do better or acquire more of a reward than the other group(s). In four studies that presented participants with an ambiguously competitive intergroup setting and administered CIP and CIM scales adapted for the context, both variables were empirically nonredundant (Studies 1–4) and showed unique relations with intergroup outcomes: CIM, rather than CIP, was directly associated with greater intergroup bias (Studies 2–4), discriminatory intentions (Study 3), and discriminatory behavior (Study 4). CIP consistently registered an indirect effect on intergroup bias and behavior through CIM. Our results suggest that in ambiguous group contexts, CIM facilitates the pursuit of goals for the ingroup, which may involve expressing intergroup bias and more antisocial outgroup behavior, and that these tendencies are quite sensitive to corresponding changes in CIP. The current framework offers more precise insights into the influence of competitive group dynamics, and can easily be integrated with other research paradigms to determine how and when intergroup competition produces intergroup bias and discrimination.

The effect of intergroup competition on intragroup affiliation in primates

Researchers from various disciplines have hypothesized a positive correlation between the level of intergroup contest competition (IGCC) and the evolution of behavioural traits, such as cooperation, altruism and friendship, which promote intragroup affiliation. Empirical support for this hypothesis is, however, scarce and mainly available from humans. We tested whether the level of IGCC affects intragroup affiliation (i.e. intragroup grooming exchange) among male and female nonhuman primates. To quantify intragroup affiliation, we used social network measures and a grooming index. Our measure of IGCC combined frequency of intergroup encounters and proportion of aggressive encounters and was calculated separately for males and females. We ran our analyses on 27 wild groups of primates belonging to 15 species (13 Cercopithecinae, one Colobinae and one Cebinae). Our analyses reveal a clear pattern of correlated evolution between grooming network density and interindividual variation in the number of grooming partners on the one hand and the intensity of IGCC on the other in females, but not males. Thus, our results suggest that the exact nature of the relationship between IGCC and intragroup affiliation is sex specific. These results may be explained by the differential costs and benefits males and females experience during aggressive intergroup confrontations and by sex-specific differences in intragroup affiliation.

The effects of intergroup competition on prosocial behaviors in young children: a comparison of 2.5-3.5 year-olds with 5.5-6.5 year-olds.

Group-based competition is considered to be a ubiquitous social context in human society. However, little is known about its potential effects on children’s prosocial behaviors. To this end, we designed an experiment in which two age groups (2.5–3.5 years of age and 5.5–6.5 years of age) engaged in an intergroup competition task where they did a so-called “game” where each child transferred table tennis balls with a spoon from one container to the other. The non-intergroup competition condition was identical to the intergroup competition condition with one exception—no intergroup competition manipulation was involved. Then, they were required to perform two economic games used to measure their prosocial behaviors. We found that under the non-intergroup competition condition, as children aged, their behaviors tended to be more fairness-oriented (such as an increase in egalitarian behaviors). However, under the intergroup competition condition, children at 2.5–3.5 years of age tended to behave prosocially towards their ingroup members compared with those who are at 5.5–6.5 years of age. The behavioral pattern under the intergroup competition condition reflects strengthening prosocial tendencies driven by the intergroup competition in younger children and simultaneously weakening intergroup competition-driven prosocial tendencies possibly due to the development of fairness-oriented behaviors in older children. Taken together, these results point to the importance of considering the effects of competitive contexts on children’s social behaviors and may have important implications for further research on the role of competitive contexts in the development of human prosocial behaviors.

Altruistic punishment and between-group competition : evidence from n-person prisoner's dilemmas.

Collective action, or the large-scale cooperation in the pursuit of public goods, has been suggested to have evolved through cultural group selection. Previous research suggests that the costly punishment of group members who do not contribute to public goods plays an important role in the resolution of collective action dilemmas. If large-scale cooperation sustained by the punishment of defectors has evolved through the mechanism of cultural group selection, two implications regarding costly punishment follow: (1) that people are more willing to punish defecting group members in a situation of intergroup competition than in a single-group social dilemma game and (2) that levels of “perverse” punishment of cooperators are not affected by intergroup competition. We find confirmation for these hypotheses. However, we find that the effect of intergroup competition on the punishment of defectors is fully explained by the stronger conditionality of punishment on expected punishment levels in the competition condition.

The Effect of Intergroup Competition on Group Coordination: An Experimental Study

We report an experiment on the effect of intergroup competition on group coordination in the minimal-effort game (Van Huyck et al., 1990). The competition was between two 7-person groups. Each player in each group independently chose an integer from 1 to 7. The group with the higher minimum won the competition and each of its members was paid according to the game?s original payoff matrix. Members of the losing group were paid nothing. In case of a tie, each player was paid half the payoff in the original matrix. This treatment was contrasted with two control treatments where each of the two groups played an independent coordination game, either with or without information about the minimum chosen by the outgroup. Although the intergroup competition does not change the set of strict equilibria, we found that it improved collective rationality by moving group members in the direction of higher-payoff equilibria. Merely providing group members with information about the minimal-effort level in the other group was not sufficient to generate this effect.

The Effects of Intergroup Competition and Assigned Group Goals on Group Efficacy and Group Effectiveness

Goal setting and competition are two motivation techniques that are thought to have similar effects on goal variables and performance. This study tests the proposition that assigned goals and competition are similar in their effect. The effects of intergroup competition and assigned group goals on a group’s efficacy, goals, productivity, and inefficiency were tested, using 351 undergraduate business students in 117 production work groups, in a 2x2 design. Intergroup competition increased the groups’efficacy, goals, and productivity and decreased inefficiency. Assigned goals increased group productivity. Results do not provide initial support for the proposition that assigned goals and competition have similar effects. Researchers and practitioners should be aware of the potential confounding effects of competition on the goal-setting process and goal-setting interventions.

Inter-group competition and stable group sizes

The stability of the sizes of foraging groups of animals is reviewed with a special emphasis on the effect of inter-group competition. A simple model, in which cooperation, within-group and inter-group competition are explicitly accounted for, shows that when resources are scarce and patchy, inter-group competition tends to keep animals within their groups, even when these groups are overpopulated. The model's conclusions are in accord with empirical observations indicating that animals tend to forage in groups that are larger than the expected optimal size.

Intergroup Competition and Cooperation within Autocratic and Democratic Management Regimes

Since the classic leadership studies of Lewin, there has been an effort to identify the contingency variables that may moderate the effects of participation in decision making (PDM) on task satisfaction and performance. In this study, the effects of democratic and autocratic management regimes were examined in laboratory organizations in which groups or departments had either cooperative or competitive orientations toward each other This allows the examination of possible moderating effects of intergroup competition and cooperation on tasksatisfaction andperformance. As expected, people reported more total control or influence, less hierarchization of influence, and more task satisfaction, as a consequence of the greaterPDM, in the democratic than in the autocratic condition. Cooperative-compared with competitive-intergroup relations produced higher task satisfaction and better task performance. As expected, intergroup competition resulted in more mutual hostility and rivalry than cooperative relations, particularly in democratic groups in which the members had more opportunities to interact with each other than in autocratic groups. Group members attributed more total influence in the competitive condition, in which they had to cope with a more complex, threatening task environment than in the cooperative condition, in which they were faced with a more benign environment. All in all, it appears that intergroup competition and cooperation within organizations might be another important contingency variable that mediates the effect of PDM on task performance and satisfaction.

Effects of intergroup competition and school philosophy on student perceptions, group processes, and performance

This study tested the hypothesis that students working on a group task in inter-team competition will adopt an ability-focused motivational orientation, while groups who are not competing will adopt an intrinsic motivational orientation. We also examined the impact of intergroup competition on groups from two different Israeli schools, one traditional-competitive and one which emphasizes cooperative values and activities. The sample comprised 89 fourth grade Israeli students (16 groups), who performed a group task either with or without intergroup competition. Results indicated that for groups in the cooperative school, the manipulation yielded the hypothesized difference in motivational orientation, as reflected in causal attributions, interest, student communications, work strategy, and performance. The manipulation did not affect groups in the traditional school. In addition, groups in the cooperative school were more likely to adopt a collaborative work strategy. Discussion focuses on the impact of prior socialization on group behaviors and on the implications of different motivational orientations for the theory and practice of cooperative learning.

Foraging society organization: A simple model of a complex transition

The evolutionary development of the hominids that culminated in the appearance of Homo sapiens included the subdivision of the species into societies on the basis of culturally, instead of biologically, constructed differentiation. It is argued that this change must have occurred after the mental ability to formulate and culturally express conceptual structures of extended relationships had been been biologically introduced, and that intergroup competition within a species provided the selective impetus for this more complex form of organization. The combination of conceptual structures for organization at a more extensive scale and the effects of intergroup competition would lead to a restructuring of the whole species into society like groups.