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. 2015 Sep:60:110-120.
doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.008.

"Ingroup love" and "outgroup hate" in intergroup conflict between natural groups

Ori Weisel  1 , Robert Böhm  2
Affiliations

"Ingroup love" and "outgroup hate" in intergroup conflict between natural groups

Ori Weisel et al. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2015 Sep.

Abstract

We report on two studies investigating the motivations ("ingroup love" and "outgroup hate") underlying individual participation in intergroup conflict between natural groups (fans of football clubs, supporters of political parties), by employing the Intergroup Prisoner's Dilemma Maximizing-Difference (IPD-MD) game. In this game group members can contribute to the ingroup (at a personal cost) and benefit ingroup members with or without harming members of an outgroup. Additionally, we devised a novel version of the IPD-MD in which the choice is between benefiting ingroup members with or without helping members of the outgroup. Our results show an overall reluctance to display outgroup hate by actively harming outgroup members, except when the outgroup was morality-based. More enmity between groups induced more outgroup hate only when it was operationalized as refraining from help.

Keywords: Ingroup love; Intergroup conflict; Intragroup conflict; Outgroup hate; Team games.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
In study 1, the degree of enmity between opposing groups was manipulated by matching a group of fans of a given club with another group of fans of the same club (e.g., BD vs. BD; no-enmity); with a group of fans of a club with no special rivalry (e.g., BD vs. FCK; weak-enmity); or with a group of fans of a club with a strong historic rivalry (e.g., BD vs. FCS; strong-enmity). In study 2 the same was done for supporters of political parties.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Study 1: Proportion of participants who chose non-contribution (to keep their endowment), ingroup love, or outgroup hate in each game (IPD, original IPD-MD and positive variant of IPD-MD) and for each degree of enmity with the opposing group (none, weak-enmity, strong-enmity). Ingroup love stands for the within-group pool in the original IPD-MD and for the between-group pool in the positive variant; outgroup hate stands for the between-group pool in the original IPD-MD, and for the within-group pool in the positive variant of the IPD-MD.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Study 2: Proportion of participants who chose non-contribution (to keep their endowment), ingroup love, or outgroup hate in each game (IPD, original IPD-MD and positive variant of IPD-MD) and for each degree of enmity with the opposing group (none, weak-enmity, strong-enmity, morality-based). Ingroup love stands for the within-group pool in the original IPD-MD and for the between-group pool in the positive variant; outgroup hate stands for the between-group pool in the original IPD-MD, and for the within-group pool in the positive variant of the IPD-MD.
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