Who cries wolf, and when? Manipulation of perceived threats to preserve rank in cooperative groups

Abstract

People perform greater within-group cooperation when their groups face external threats, such as hostile outgroups or natural disasters. Researchers and social commentators suggest that high-ranking group members manipulate this "threat-dependent" cooperation by exaggerating threats in order to promote cooperation and suppress competition for their position. However, little systematic research tests this claim or possible situational moderators. In three studies, we use a cooperative group game to show that participants pay to increase others' perceptions of group threats, and spend more on manipulation when holding privileged positions. This manipulation cost-effectively elicits cooperation and sustains privilege, and is fostered by competition over position, not only position per se. Less cooperative people do more manipulation than more cooperative people do. Furthermore, these effects generalize to broader definitions of privilege. Conceptually, these results offer new insights into an understudied dimension of group behavior. Methodologically, the research extends cooperative group games to allow for analyzing more complex group dynamics.

Figure 1. Flowchart of each of the 20 rounds of the study from the perspective of each participant.

Participants' decisions are in bold.

Figure 2. Average manipulation in Study 1.

(a) Percentage of endowments (and standard error of the means) spent by high-ranking participants (solid line) and low-ranking participants (dashed line) on increasing the perceived threat level across rounds and (b) this manipulation overall. Positive (negative) numbers represent paying to raise (decrease) perceived threat levels. High- and low-ranking participants both paid to raise threat levels on average (both ps <.005), but high-ranking participants did so more than did low-ranking participants (b = 0.98, z = 3.63, p<.001).

Figure 3. Average percentage of endowments contributed to the group by high- and low-ranking participants in Study 1 at different perceived probabilities of group failure.

Contributions increased as perceived threats increased (b = 0.31, z = 15.5, p<.001). High-ranking participants contributed a lower percent of their endowment than did low-ranking participants (b = −3.70, z = −2.20, p = .028).

Figure 4. Average percent of endowment (and standard error of the means) spent on increasing the perceived threat level, Study 2.

Figure 5. Average percent of endowment (and standard error of the means) spent on increasing the perceived threat level, Study 3.