ArticleScientific reports2017
The evolution of extreme cooperation via shared dysphoric experiences.
Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed.
- Interdependence explains how and when crises impact social cohesion.Communications psychology · 2026Review
- Modality Matters: Intact and Enhanced Memory Skills in Children From High-Stress Environments.Cognitive science · 2026Article
- Shared dysphoric experiences activate identity fusion, but not forever.The British journal of social psychology · 2026Article
- Can transformative experiences bridge the gap between receiving communities and formerly incarcerated persons?The British journal of social psychology · 2025Article
- What kinds of speeches motivate climate action?Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Shared suffering predicts prosocial commitment among Turkish earthquake survivors.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Fusing concept to theory: identity fusion's potential role in crime research.Theory and society · 2025Review
- Article
- Response to collective threat: Russian invasion unifies Ukrainians across ethnic, linguistic, religious and geographic lines.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- A soccer-based intervention improves incarcerated individuals' behaviour and public acceptance through group bonding.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- How shared suffering bonded Britons witnessing the Queen's funeral.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Why care for humanity?Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Article
- The people's game: evolutionary perspectives on the behavioural neuroscience of football fandom.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Positive Social Interaction and Psychological Kinship Mediate the Effect of Identity Fusion on Psychological Well-Being in South-South Migrants.Trends in psychology · 2023Article
- Modeling nationalism, religiosity, and threat perception: During the COVID-19 pandemic.PloS one · 2023Article
- Effects of Positive and Negative Experiences on Cooperative Behavior: The Role of Sharedness.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Strongly fused individuals feel viscerally responsible to self-sacrifice.The British journal of social psychology · 2022Article
- Making Meaning of Disaster Experience in Highly Trauma-exposed Survivors of the Oklahoma City Bombing.Traumatology · 2022Article
- Social norms (not threat) mediate willingness to sacrifice in individuals fused with the nation: Insights from the COVID-19 pandemic.European journal of social psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Willingness to lay down one's life for a group of non-kin, well documented historically and ethnographically, represents an evolutionary puzzle. Building on research in social psychology, we develop a mathematical model showing how conditioning cooperation on previous shared experience can allow individually costly pro-group behavior to evolve. The model generates a series of predictions that we then test empirically in a range of special sample populations (including military veterans, college fraternity/sorority members, football fans, martial arts practitioners, and twins). Our empirical results show that sharing painful experiences produces "identity fusion" - a visceral sense of oneness - which in turn can motivate self-sacrifice, including willingness to fight and die for the group. Practically, our account of how shared dysphoric experiences produce identity fusion helps us better understand such pressing social issues as suicide terrorism, holy wars, sectarian violence, gang-related violence, and other forms of intergroup conflict.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.