A large literature in psychology and economics suggests that enrolment into groups shapes conflict behavior, even if the groups lack a salient identity. Our experimental design systematically modifies group formation and prize sharing rules to explain behavioral differences between conflicts among individuals and intergroup feuds. Apart from rather high levels of conflict expenditure in all treatments, we find no specific evidence for outgroup hostility. Group formation induces conditional cooperation within the groups. The prize distribution rules have a strong aggregate impact. Proportional prize sharing in winning groups fosters expenditure while egalitarian prize-sharing – a staple of such experiments – induces the predicted free-rider effects. Overall, our results support inequality aversion rather than parochial altruism as an explanation for differences in expenditures between individual and group conflicts.

IntroductionThis study analyzes the experience of participating in the 2023 Carnaval de Negros y Blancos, a festive event that emphasizes southwestern Colombia’s African, Andean, and European traditions.MethodsWe surveyed a total of 163 participants, including dancers (n = 73, 44.79%), players (n = 47, 28.83%), and other artists (n = 43, 26.33%). Questions were asked about participation (type of role, number of days at the festival) and the quality of the experience according to the neo-Durkheimian model of collective gatherings (situated social identity, perceived shared attention and behavioral synchrony, fusion of personal and collective identity, perceived emotional synchrony, positive personal emotions, self-transcendent emotions, including awe, and experience of self-transcendence). The outcome variables were parochial altruism, identification with the community, the national, and humanity.ResultsThe participation experience was associated with all outcomes. The data supports that quality of participation in the event or collective effervescence, controlling for sociodemographic variables and intensity of participation, was associated to communal and national identification, but also to superordinate identification with all of humanity. Awe felt during Carnaval de Negros y Blancos correlates with the quality of experience, with social identification, and with superordinate identification with all of humanity. Mediation analyses show that collective effervescence influences community identity and parochial altruism through awe, but does not influence national or all of humanity’s identity.DiscussionWe discuss why a local multicultural event partially reinforces superordinate identities, the limitations of the study, and our research approaches.

SummaryHuman intergroup conflict occurs on a scale unmatched in other mammals. Paradoxically, this capacity for war is closely linked to our exceptionally cooperative abilities. Models of “parochial altruism” describe how within-group cooperation and between-group competition may co-evolve, but it is unclear whether these models reflect human preference adaptation in real-world conflicts. Across five studies (total N = 1,121), we develop and validate a psychometric toolkit to test the core assumptions and predictions of parochial altruism models in groups involved in real conflicts of varying intensities. Our measures clearly distinguish interindividual altruism from intergroup parochialism, outperform prior metrics in capturing social preferences related to intergroup conflict, and improve predictions of individuals’ conflict contributions. Notably, we find that parochialism varies for different outgroups—an unanticipated result that challenges existing theoretical models. Our work provides new tools for studying individual- and group-level social preferences in intergroup relations and presents novel evidence to inform substantive theoretical improvement.

Effects of synchronous chanting and identity fusion on perceived ingroup formidability, outgroup threat, and parochial altruism among soccer fans

It is commonly argued that humans have generalised predispositions for within-group favouritism and between-group animus (i.e. that humans are parochially altruistic), leading to higher levels of internal conflict in societies with greater diversity. Other research, however, has questioned both the ubiquity of parochial altruism and the role of diversity per se in causing social discord. Here, we use ethnographic, social network and experimental economic game data to explore this topic in two multi-ethnic Colombian communities. We examine the extent to which Afrocolombian and Emberá residents express parochial altruism, finding appreciable variability between communities, and across individuals within communities. When present, parochial altruism appears to be driven by divergent perceptions of group-based economic need, not group identity per se. Our results suggest that diversity may be less likely to cause social discord than past work has suggested, as long as group-based inequalities in wealth, well-being and representation - that can destabilise positive inter-group relationships - are minimised.

• Costly participation in Pope Francis’s funerary rites predicted increased charitable giving. • Physical discomfort selectively enhanced donations to a Catholic (ingroup) charity, but not to a neutral charity (Red Cross). • The effect was strongest among local participants, suggesting identity-contingent parochial altruism. • The results support self-signaling theories of ritual behavior. Large-scale public rituals often impose significant physical and psychological burdens, yet are widespread across cultures. Evolutionary theories often interpret such rituals through the lens of signaling, viewing them as credible displays of commitment to groups, norms, or beliefs. While much of this literature emphasizes interpersonal signaling, recent theoretical work highlights the potential for self-signaling, where individuals infer their own values by observing their own costly behavior. However, this mechanism remains underexplored. To test it, we conducted a field study during the funeral rites of Pope Francis, where hundreds of thousands queued for hours under challenging conditions to view his body lying in state. We found that higher self-reported discomfort predicted donations to a Catholic charity but not to a religiously neutral one. This effect was strongest among local participants and with stronger identification as Catholic. Our findings highlight an underemphasized dimension to signaling theory, offering new insights into the psychological pathways through which ritual participation shapes moral behavior.

We assess the proposition that intergroup conflict (IGC) in non-human primates offers a useful comparison for studies of human IGC and its links to parochial altruism and prosociality. That is, for non-linguistic animals, social network integration and maternal influence promote juvenile engagement in IGC and can serve as the initial grounding for sociocultural processes that drive human cooperation. Using longitudinal data from three cohorts of non-adult vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus), we show that non-adults are sensitive to personal (age) and situational risk (participant numbers). The frequency and intensity of participation, although modulated by rank and temperament, both mirrors maternal participation and reflects non-adult centrality in the grooming network. The possibility of social induction is corroborated by the distribution of grooming during IGC, with non-adults being more likely to be groomed if they were female, higher-ranking and participants themselves. Mothers were more likely to groom younger offspring participants of either sex, whereas other adults targeted higher-ranking female participants. Although we caution against a facile alignment of these outcomes to human culturally mediated induction, there is merit in considering how the embodied act of participation and the resultant social give-and-take might serve as the basis for a unified comparative investigation of prosociality.

Oxytocin is an ancient neuropeptide with a wide range of functions. Over hundreds of millions years of evolution, the functional role of oxytocin and its homologues expanded from initially providing effective reproduction to consolidating partner relationships in monogamous species, family groups of cooperatively breeding species and diverse complex relationships within social groups characterized by parochial altruism traits. In different classes of vertebrates, the expansion of the scope of oxytocin actions could evolve independently, and today the most complete spectrum of functional effects of oxytocin is studied in mammals. The review gives a brief analysis of the functional role of oxytocin and its homologues in vertebrates based on modern research with an emphasis on its effects on social behavior.

Recent advances in moral decision-making research show people are hyperaltruistic by being more willing to sacrifice monetary gains to spare others from suffering than to spare themselves. Yet other studies indicate an opposite egoistic bias: subjects are less willing to harm themselves for others’ benefits than for their own. These results underscore the complexities of moral decisions and demand a mechanistic explanation for hyperaltruistic preferences. We investigated hyperaltruism using trade-off choices combining monetary gains and painful electric shocks and choices combining monetary losses and shocks. Study 1 revealed that switching the decision context from gains to losses effectively eliminated the hyperaltruistic preference, accompanied by the altered relationship between subjects’ instrumental harm (IH) trait attitudes and relative pain sensitivities. In the pre-registered study 2, we found that oxytocin, a neuropeptide linked to parochial altruism, restored the context-dependent hyperaltruistic preference. Furthermore, oxytocin increased the degree to which subjects framed the task as harming others, which mediated the correlation between IH and relative pain sensitivities. Thus, the loss decision context and oxytocin diminished and restored the mediation effect of subjective harm framing, respectively. Our results help elucidate the psychological processes underpinning the contextual specificity of hyperaltruism and carry implications in promoting prosocial interactions.

This conceptual paper explores the complex relationship between religious fundamentalism, parochial altruism, and inter-religious prosocial consumer behavior. It argues that social norms can significantly influence prosocial consumer behavior across religious boundaries, fostering inclusive and tolerant societal behaviors. However, this positive impact is often challenged by religious fundamentalism and parochial altruism, which tend to promote ingroup favoritism and outgroup discrimination. The paper proposes that strong religious conservatism can diminish the likelihood of helping individuals from different religious groups, while parochial altruism exacerbates this bias. To counteract these negative influences, organizations and governments must promote harmonious inter-religious interactions through strategic efforts. Such initiatives can contribute to a more inclusive and harmonious society. This study contributes to the broader understanding of inter-religious dynamics and offers theoretical insights for fostering social cohesion and prosocial consumer behavior in diverse communities.

Parochial Altruism in Civil Society Leaders: Legacies of Contested Governance

The neuropeptide hormone oxytocin and the steroid hormone testosterone have received attention as modulators of behavior in the context of intergroup conflict. However, to date, their interactive effect has yet to be tested. Here, in a double-blind placebo-control design, 204 participants (102 female participants) self-administrated oxytocin or placebo and completed an experimental economic game modeling intergroup conflict. Salivary testosterone (n = 192) was measured throughout the task to assess endogenous reactivity. As a caveat, even at this sample size, our derived power to detect small effects for 2- and 3-way interactions was relatively low. For male participants, changes in testosterone predicted willingness to sacrifice investments for the betterment of the group. Intranasal administration of oxytocin strongly diminished this effect. In female participants, we found no credible evidence for association between changes in testosterone and investments, rather, oxytocin effects were independent of testosterone. This 3-way interaction was of medium to large effect size (Odds Ratio 5.11). Behavior was also affected by social cues such as signaling of ingroup and outgroup members. Our findings provide insights as to the biological processes underpinning parochial altruism and suggest an additional path for the dual influence of oxytocin and testosterone on human social behavior.

The article is founded on the position that social communication as an evolutionary option for the development of communication of all living beings must also include legal communication. In this existential context, legal communication is not reduced only to the transfer of symbolic (textual) information determining the behavior of subjects of law. It is also considered as a vital option for adapting to the environment, which allows both individuals and society to survive, develop and self-realize. Legal communication involves not just cooperation and interaction between legal subjects, but also the observance of the necessary conditions for the implicit and explicit goals of legal communication to be achieved and realized. Implicit (universal, transcendental, evolutionarily necessary) goals are reflected at the sociobiological level in the reciprocal altruism (ego-altruism) of communicants, at the philosophical (rational) level — in the principle of mutual legal and moral recognition, at the religious level — in the commandment “love your neighbor as yourself.” The authors reveal the connection between these concepts and the concept of communication by J. Habermas and the principle of mutual recognition by A. Honneth, on the one hand, and the idea of intuitive law by L.I. Petrażycki and the ideal of “free all-unity” by P.I. Novgorodtsev, on the other hand. It is shown that the findings of these scholars lie at the heart of the communicative theory of law and are supported by neuroscience data. According to the position put forward in this research, the rejection of mutual recognition inevitably entails the assertion of parochial altruism, the ideology of tribalism, the ideological justification of authoritarianism, violence as a universal political method, the neglect of human rights and, as a result, the deformation and destruction of legal communication.

The Battle of Mosul (2016–2017) was one of the most grueling urban warfare campaigns in recent memory. The fighting quickly concentrated in West Mosul, where civilians prevented by the Islamic State from leaving their homes experienced airstrikes and indiscriminate shelling by government forces. Utilizing the as-if-randomness of severe damage or destruction of people’s homes, this paper examines the impact of war exposure on the endorsement of moral foundations among a large and diverse sample of Mosul residents ( N = 1027). Home damage increased binding morality but had a larger impact on individualizing morality, heightening concerns about fairness and protection from harm. A survey experiment in which the sectarian identity of the target was randomly assigned further revealed a strong association between individualizing morality and parochial altruism. Challenging conventional wisdom, both individualizing and binding morality reinforce group cohesion in ways that are functionally adaptive and responsive to the damage wrought by war.

ABSTRACT Emerging theory and evidence suggest that intergroup relations may stimulate malevolent creativity, but the intergroup foundations of malevolent creativity remain unexplored. Drawing from theories of intergroup conflict, we argue that malevolent creativity can be understood through the lens of parochial altruism, one’s willingness to partake in personally risky activity to harm outgroups (i.e. parochialism) in favor of an ingroup (i.e. altruism). Accordingly, malevolent creativity can be viewed as the willful generation and consideration of novel ideas for oneself to enact harm on an outgroup on behalf of an ingroup. Many instances of parochial altruism such as war or terrorism begin from strong sentiments of ingroup love and become more likely when paired with reasons to aggress against an outgroup. Extending this logic to malevolent creativity, we contend that ingroup affinity predicts malevolent creativity and that this relation grows stronger when people hold hostile attitudes toward the outgroup––or, in the absence of hostility, are directly provoked by outgroup members. We test our propositions in a sample of 307 undergraduate students and find partial support for our predictions.

Extant research on workplace ostracism has investigated a victimization perspective to understand ostracism at the cost of examining the perpetrator-centric view of ostracism. The current study draws on the self-categorization theory and the social exchange theory to investigate the harmful effects of workplace romance in cultivating workplace ostracism from the perpetrator's perspective to combat concerns for victim blaming. The study further proposes that workplace ostracism triggered by workplace romance provokes knowledge sabotage. Besides, the study investigates the moderating role of parochial altruism in the underlying linkages. The study utilizes a multisource, time-lagged research design to collect data from employees working in service sector organizations in Pakistan. The study analyzes 343 responses using SmartPLS (v 4.0). The findings of this study reveal that workplace romance elicits workplace ostracism, which, in turn, fosters knowledge sabotage. In addition, the study finds that parochial altruism strengthens the associations between (a) workplace romance and workplace ostracism and (b) workplace romance and knowledge sabotage, mediated by workplace ostracism such that the associations are more potent at higher levels of parochial altruism and vice versa. This is the first study that examines workplace romance as the perpetrator-centric antecedent of workplace ostracism, and parochial altruism exaggerates outgroup ostracism and knowledge sabotage.

Pro-social risk-taking and intergroup conflict: A volunteer's dilemma experiment

Studies have shown that intergroup conflict may result from two distinct human motives: the desire to obtain personal retributions from conflict ( egoism), and the desire to sacrifice for the benefit of the ingroup ( parochial altruism). Yet, the relative strength of these motives is open to debate. In this study, we compare behaviors in two Intergroup Prisoner’s Dilemmas (IPD), which respectively capture altruistic and egoistic motives to generate conflict. Egoistic motives result in about 40% more conflict than altruistic motives. Yet, parochial altruism generates more conflict when three conditions are gathered: i) other ingroup members are parochial altruists, ii) the outgroup is aggressive and iii) the outgroup is rich. Implications regarding the diverging structural causes of terrorism and civil wars are discussed.

The aim of this study was an analytical justification of the emergence and presence of the phenomenon of war among hominins, taking into account males' genetic benefits gained through war in the natural environment. Based on chimpanzee behavior, the analytical model of the primary warrior balance was explored, comparing the risk of a war expedition with the genetic profits from war rape-"life and death balance". On the profits side, genetic gains possible to obtain in terms of permanent attractiveness of females (warrior status and abductions of females) were also included. Kin cooperation, parochial altruism, and "partisan strategy" have been defined as psychological mechanisms that enable effective group violence. Male genetic benefit from a war rape could exceed the risk of a warrior's death in the chimpanzee-human LCA species; transition from the herd to the patriarchal tribal social system could increase warrior's genetic gains from war. At the root of war lie sexual limitations of cooperating males, induced by female sexual preferences and lack of the permanent female sexual drive. War rape allows reproductive success for dominated and thus sexually restricted males. Tendencies for group aggression to gain access to out-group females (the war gene) are common among sexually restricted men. Resource-rich areas favor increase in human population density, this affects group territoriality and promotes intergroup conflicts, and thus patriarchy. Roots of conventional patriarchal marriage are strongly combined with war-"the right to land entails the right to a female".

В статье рассматривается ряд вопросов, связанных с эволюцией и биологией поведения человека. В свете синтеза теорий антропогенеза Клода Оуэна Лавджоя и Сэмюэля Боулза в качестве одного из ключевых вопросов антропологии выделяется неустойчивое динамическое равновесие между парохиально-альтруистическими стратегиями репродуктивного успеха, толкающими человечество к разделению на репродуктивно замкнутые, изолированные и генетически однородные внутри себя суперорганизмы, и эгоистическими стратегиями, ограничивающими развитие эусоциальности и способствующими социальной атомизации, размыванию границ между сообществами и межпопуляционному генетическому смешению. Особое внимание в статье уделяется важному фактору, «играющему на стороне» парохиального альтруизма - репродуктивной и социальной ассортативности, то есть стремлению к формированию семейных и дружеских пар с генетическими родственниками. В заключение отмечаются факторы, которые могут оказывать существенное влияние на направление дальнейшей продолжающейся биологической эволюции человека как вида. The article deals with a number of issues related to the evolution and biology of human behavior. In the light of the synthesis of the theories of anthropogenesis by Claude Owen Lovejoy and Samuel Bowles, one of the key issues of anthropology is an unstable dynamic balance between the parochial-altruistic strategies of reproductive success, pushing humanity to division into reproductively closed, isolated and genetically homogeneous superorganisms, and egoistic strategies, limiting the development of eusociality and contributing to social atomization, blurring of boundaries between communities and interpopulation genetic mixing. Particular attention is paid to an important factor that "plays on the side" of parochial altruism reproductive and social assortativeness, that is, the desire to form family and friendly couples with genetic relatives. In conclusion, factors are noted that can have a significant impact on the direction of further ongoing biological evolution of man as a species.