ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2022
Environmental stress increases out-group aggression and intergroup conflict in humans.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dissociable glucocorticoid and noradrenergic effects on parochial cooperation and competition in intergroup conflict.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Trial
- The Evolutionary-Ecological Basis of Xenophilia.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Gender and culture shape prosociality more than heat stress in a five-country experiment.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Prosocial preferences can escalate intergroup conflicts by countering selfish motivations to leave.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Group Formation and the Evolution of Human Social Organization.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2024Article
- Cultural threat perceptions predict violent extremism via need for cognitive closure.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Article
- Environmental stress increases out-group aggression and intergroup conflict in humans.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Intergroup conflict: origins, dynamics and consequences across taxa.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
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3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Peaceful coexistence and trade among human groups can be fragile and intergroup relations frequently transition to violent exchange and conflict. Here we specify how exogenous changes in groups' environment and ensuing carrying-capacity stress can increase individual participation in intergroup conflict, and out-group aggression in particular. In two intergroup contest experiments, individuals could contribute private resources to out-group aggression (versus in-group defense). Environmental unpredictability, induced by making non-invested resources subject to risk of destruction (versus not), created psychological stress and increased participation in and coordination of out-group attacks. Archival analyses of interstate conflicts showed, likewise, that sovereign states engage in revisionist warfare more when their pre-conflict economic and climatic environment were more volatile and unpredictable. Given that participation in conflict is wasteful, environmental unpredictability not only made groups more often victorious but also less wealthy. Macro-level changes in the natural and economic environment can be a root cause of out-group aggression and turn benign intergroup relations violent. This article is part of the theme issue 'Intergroup conflict across taxa'.
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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.