The role of costly commitment signals in intergroup conflict
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Around the world, people engage in practices that involve self-inflicted pain, wasted resources and time and energy investments. More often than not, these practices appear as part of religious ceremonies, supposedly demonstrating devotion and commitment. Researchers hailing from various disciplines theorise that these practices evolved to stabilise within-group cooperation by assorting individuals committed to collective action. Specifically, costly practices function as signals of hidden cooperative phenotype and these practices may be afforded only by individuals with high phenotypic quality. Importantly, previous research found that the frequency of costly signalling behaviours increases during warfare as a response to pressures to enhance group cooperative efforts by assorting cooperators. Yet, the direct relationship between costly signaling and conflict-related increase in cooperation has not been experimentally tested. In this talk, I will present our pursuit of this question using experimental manipulation in multiple studies tracking the effects of costly signals on cooperative assortment, group cooperation, and sacrifice of resources during inter-group competition. |
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