More for Us or More for Me? Social Dominance as Parochial Egoism

Abstract

Intergroup interactions allow members of advantaged groups to cooperate with in-group and out-group members alike (universal cooperation), cooperate with in-group members exclusively (parochial cooperation), or withhold cooperation altogether. These behaviors impact the intergroup hierarchy differently; therefore, individuals’ ideological support of intergroup hierarchy may predict their choices among them. Universal cooperation is inherently egalitarian and hence inconsistent with social dominance orientation (SDO). Although parochial cooperation strengthens the in-group relative to the out-group, and hence consistent with SDO, it is unclear to what extent members of advantaged groups higher in SDO are willing to pay the costs associated with participation in parochial cooperation. Studies conducted across three distinct intergroup contexts in the United States and Israel consistently find that SDO coincides with behavioral selfishness, a pattern we label parochial egoism. These findings illuminate a gap between individuals’ ideological worldview and their social behavior and elucidate the motivational meaning of SDO.

Keywords

intergroup relations hierarchy cooperation social inequality self-interest

Divisive identity politics is on the rise worldwide. Recent geopolitical events have once more thrust sectarian and separatist ideologies to the fore of nations’ political agenda, solidifying group boundaries and fortifying national borders across the globe. This state of affairs raises important, pressing questions about the social psychological processes that govern intergroup relations. The current article focuses on the essential tension between the pursuit of universalism and egalitarianism, on the one hand, and the pursuit of social dominance and supremacy, on the other hand, in contemporary intergroup relations.

Intergroup hierarchies are ubiquitous. In most human societies, if not all of them, some groups are more powerful, privileged, and prosperous than others (Sidanius & Pratto, 2001). The benefits that come from group-based advantage are public goods that are equally accessible to all the members of the advantaged group regardless of how much they personally contributed to their attainment. This creates a cooperation problem within advantaged groups: To create and sustain group-based advantage, individual group members must contribute valuable personal resources to the group (e.g., time, effort, and money; De Dreu, Balliet, & Halevy, 2014). Whereas all the members of the advantaged group are better off if all cooperate than if none cooperates, each individual group member has an incentive to free ride the contributions of fellow in-group members—to enjoy the benefits that come with group-based advantage without contributing to their attainment. Thus, the fact that group-based advantage is a public good creates an inherent tension between the group’s interest and the self-interest of each of its individual members (Dawes, 1980).

Presumably, members of advantaged groups who support intergroup hierarchy ideologically should be willing to engage in costly cooperation with fellow in-group members to maintain their group’s relative advantage over subordinate groups. However, theoretical insights and empirical findings regarding the nature of such ideological beliefs raise doubts about the willingness of individuals higher in social dominance orientation (SDO) to engage in costly cooperation. The extent to which high-SDO individuals follow through on their ideology and use their personal resources to strengthen the in-group through parochial cooperation is an open question. The current research addresses this question, focusing on the behavior of members of advantaged groups during intergroup interactions with members of disadvantaged groups.

Individual, Group, and Collective Interests

Intergroup interactions provide members of advantaged groups with opportunities to cooperate with in-group and out-group members alike (universal cooperation), cooperate with in-group members exclusively (parochial cooperation), or withhold cooperation altogether (Wit & Kerr, 2002). Universal and parochial cooperation are both costly to individuals. Hence, egoistically motivated members of advantaged groups should be reluctant to invest valuable personal resources to benefit others either universally or parochially. However, universal and parochial cooperation impact the intergroup hierarchy differently. Universal cooperation treats in-group and out-group members equally—it benefits all individuals similarly. Thus, universal cooperation cannot enhance social inequality. In contrast, parochial cooperation creates resources within the group—it strengthens and enriches the in-group, which can potentially enhance the in-group’s relative advantage over the out-group (to the extent that out-group members contribute fewer resources to strengthen their group). Hence, members of advantaged groups who are motivated to enhance their group’s advantage over subordinate groups should direct their resources toward parochial cooperation and refrain from universal cooperation.

Given that different courses of action during intergroup interactions have distinct consequences for intergroup hierarchy, individuals’ ideological endorsement of intergroup hierarchy may shape their behavior during intergroup interactions. Building on the voluminous literature on SDO, we formulate two competing hypotheses concerning the association between SDO and the behavior of members of advantaged groups in intergroup interactions with members of disadvantaged groups.

The Nature of SDO: Deriving Competing Hypotheses

SDO captures individuals’ ideological preference for group-based hierarchy in society (Sidanius & Pratto, 2001). High-SDO individuals support social inequality and tend to discriminate against members of disadvantaged groups (Ho et al., 2015; Pratto et al., 2013). Given that SDO captures support for inequality in society, members of advantaged groups who are higher in SDO are unlikely to engage in universal cooperation, which treats in-group and out-group members equally. However, it is unclear from existing theoretical and empirical work whether SDO is associated with parochial or selfish behavior.

Hypothesis 1a: High-SDO Members of Advantaged Groups Will Behave Parochially

One possibility is that high-SDO members of advantaged groups also show stronger in-group favoritism behaviorally by cooperating parochially (Balliet, Wu, & De Dreu, 2014). According to this theoretical account, SDO leads members of advantaged groups to see parochial cooperation as diametrically opposed to universal cooperation because the former course of action discriminates between in-group and out-group members, whereas the latter course of action treats them equally. This theoretical possibility is consistent with some previous research, which found that SDO is associated with strong ethnic and national identities (Thomsen, Green, & Sidanius, 2008), blind patriotism (Livi, Leone, Falgares, & Lombardo, 2014; McFarland, 2005), a competitive worldview (Perry, Sibley, & Duckitt, 2013), and reduced cooperation with out-group members (Ho et al., 2015; Pratto et al., 2013). This theoretical account predicts that SDO will correlate negatively with universal cooperation, positively with parochial cooperation, and be unrelated to self-interested behavior.

Hypothesis 1b: High-SDO Members of Advantaged Groups Will Behave Selfishly

An alternative hypothesis is that high-SDO members of advantaged groups are selfishly motivated and ideologically support group-based advantage merely as a means for enhancing their personal advantage. According to this view, high-SDO members of advantaged groups are parochial in their ideology but selfish in their behavior. Although they seek to subordinate out-groups and maintain the intergroup hierarchy, they tend to withhold cooperation and free ride others’ contributions (a behavior associated with interpersonal dominance; Halevy, Chou, Cohen, & Livingston, 2012). We introduce the concept of “parochial egoism” to capture this combination of parochial ideology and selfish behavior.

Consistent with this hypothesis, researchers found that SDO correlates positively with narcissism and Machiavellianism (Ho et al., 2015), personal power and dominance (Altemeyer, 1998), and self-enhancement values (Cohrs, Moschner, Maes, & Kielmann, 2005; Livi et al., 2014) and negatively with empathetic concern for others (Chiao, Mathur, Harada, & Lipke, 2009; Ho et al., 2015), altruism and honesty–humility (Ho et al., 2015), communality (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth & Malle, 1994), agreeableness (Heaven & Bucci, 2001), and self-transcendence values (Cohrs et al., 2005; Livi et al., 2014). This theoretical account predicts that SDO will correlate negatively with universal cooperation, positively with self-interested behavior, and be unrelated to parochial cooperation.

Research Overview

To test our hypotheses, we use nested social dilemma games (henceforth NSDGs)—experimental paradigms that capture the tensions between selfishness, parochialism, and universalism (Buchan et al., 2009, 2011; Wit & Kerr, 2002). Consider the following NSDG that involves 2 four-person groups. Each individual group member receives an initial endowment of 10 tokens and has to decide, independently and anonymously, how to allocate their tokens between three pools: private, in-group, and collective. Each token contributed to the private pool adds US$2 to the individual. Each token contributed to the in-group pool adds US$1 to each in-group member, including the contributor. Finally, each token contributed to the collective pool adds US$0.50 to each of the eight members of the collective, including the contributor (i.e., in-group and out-group members alike; see Table 1; Halevy et al., 2012, study 3).

Table 1.

Payoffs of the Parochial and Universalistic Nested Social Dilemma Games.

Contribution to Pool	Outcomes for	Parochial	Universalistic
Private	Self	2	2
	Each in-group member	0	0
	Each out-group member	0	0
	Overall value	2	2
In-group	Self	1	1
	Each in-group member	1	1
	Each out-group member	0	0
	Overall value	4	4
Collective	Self	0.5	1
	Each in-group member	0.5	1
	Each out-group member	0.5	1
	Overall value	4	8

Note. The payoffs noted in the table indicate the consequences of contributing one game token. The payoffs represent USD (the U.S. samples, Studies 1 and 2) or ILS (the Israeli sample, Study 3). In our experiments, each group consisted of four members and in each group member received an initial endowment of 10 (in the U.S. samples, Studies 1 and 2) or 20 (the Israeli sample, Study 3) game tokens. Overall value captures the total sum generated as a result of contributing one token calculated across all eight participants in the game.

In this experimental decision-making task, keeping the initial endowment benefits the individual the most regardless of what others do because the cost of contributing a token is US$2, whereas the personal gain from contributing the same token is either US$1 (for contributions to the in-group pool) or US$0.50 (for contributions to the collective pool). Contributing a token to either the in-group pool or the collective pool produces US$4, which enhances overall efficiency and welfare at a personal cost. The main difference between contributions to the in-group and collective pools is that contributing to the former produces gains for in-group members only whereas contributing to the latter entails sharing the same benefits (the US$4 created through contribution) with everyone, across group boundaries. Given the tension between in-group and collective interests in this version of the NSDG, we label this version of the task a parochial NSDG.

This experimental task lends itself to systematic variations. Consider a more harmonious variation in which each token contributed to the collective pool adds US$1 (rather than US$0.50) to each of the eight members of the collective, and all other parameters stay the same. In this variation, contributing a token to the collective pool increases overall welfare more than contributing the same token to the in-group pool. In addition, benefiting out-group members can now be done at no cost to in-group members (Weisel & Bohm, 2015, study 2). Because this version does not include a tension between in-group and collective interests, we label this version a universalistic NSDG.

To explore the generalizability of the relations between SDO and individual behavior, we employed both the parochial and universalistic NSDGs. Given that contributions to the collective pool in the universalistic NSDG have greater value overall and come at no cost to fellow in-group members (see Table 1), we expected contributions to this pool to be higher in the universalistic NSDG than in the parochial NSDG. The extent to which SDO interacts with the version of the game can shed light on the motivational meaning of SDO. If high-SDO members of advantaged groups are parochial cooperators, then their propensity to benefit in-group members exclusively should be even greater when a tension exists between in-group and collective interests (i.e., in the parochial NSDG) than when such a tension does not exist (i.e., in the universal NSDG). However, if high-SDO members of advantaged groups are parochial egoists, they should behave similarly across the two versions of the game and withhold cooperation regardless of the consequences for others.

We conducted three studies. In each study, we recruited members of dominant groups, assessed their SDO, and explored their behavior in the two versions of the NSDG described above. Given that this research is the first to explore the relations between SDO and individual behavior in NSDGs, we sought to test our competing hypotheses in three distinct intergroup contexts: racial conflict between Whites and Blacks in the United States, religious conflict between Christians and Muslims in the United States, and ethnopolitical conflict between Jewish and Palestinian citizens in Israel. Observing the same pattern of relations across these three contexts would suggest that these ideology–behavior associations generalize across national cultures and intergroup conflicts.

Study 1

While race relations have been a constant concern in the United States (Allport, 1954; Apfelbaum, Grunberg, Halevy, & Kang, 2017; Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002), they have attracted considerable public attention recently, as evidenced by the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement and the contentious public discourse about race relations during the 2016 Presidential campaign. We conducted Study 1 in this context of racial conflict in the United States.

Our empirical studies focus on the ideological worldviews and behavior of members of advantaged groups. Hence, in the context of the racial conflict between Whites and Blacks in the United States, we surveyed White participants primarily. We restricted our investigation to members of advantaged groups for three main reasons. First, we sought to learn how individuals who personally benefit from group-based advantage behave in circumstances that allow them to choose among selfish, parochial, and universalistic courses of action. Second, whereas extensive scholarship exists about the cooperation problem within disadvantaged groups, who seek to promote social change (Gamson, 1968; Olson, 1965), little is known about the dynamics of cooperation among members of advantaged groups, despite the fact that both classic and current frameworks acknowledge that advantaged groups similarly need to establish within-group cooperation to promote group interests (De Dreu et al., 2016; Tajfel & Turner, 1979).¹ Third, the psychological meaning of SDO as a construct and its relation to other variables may be different among members of advantaged groups as compared with members of disadvantaged groups (e.g., Levin, Federico, Sidanius, & Rabinowitz, 2002). Hence, we tested our competing hypotheses only among members of advantaged groups. However, as we describe below, we also recruited a small number of participants from relevant disadvantaged groups as required to substantiate our methodology.

Method

Participants and Design

All three studies used a rule-of-thumb stopping rule to determine sample size. Based on the discussion of sample sizes by Simmons, Nelson, and Simonsohn (2011) and Simonsohn (2015), we decided ex ante that we would aim to recruit 100 participants per experimental condition. Given that we originally planned a 2 × 2 between-subject design,² we recruited 415 U.S. White participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk; 42.9% female, age: M = 34.9, SD = 11.2). Two participants who indicated they were Canadian citizens were excluded from analyses. We randomly assigned participants to one of the two experimental conditions that manipulated the payoff parameters in the NSDG, consistent with the parochial (n = 203) and universalistic (n = 210) versions of the game noted earlier. Participants received US$0.81 for completing the study and had the opportunity to earn additional money based on their decisions in the game and the outcome of a lottery, as explained below.

Procedure and Materials

Participants first made decisions in the game and then completed a measure of SDO. The instructions of the NSDG (adapted from Halevy et al., 2012, study 3) informed participants that only Whites and Blacks will take part in this study; that once all the participants have made their decisions, we will group them to form racially homogeneous four-person decision-making groups; that groups of Whites will be paired with groups of Blacks and vice versa; and that once the study is completed, we will conduct a raffle in which two 8-person games will be randomly selected and their members will be paid based on their decisions. Thus, participants learned that, if their group is drawn in the raffle, they will receive additional payment based on their decisions and the decisions of members of their racial in-group and out-group.

To enable this methodology, we needed to recruit as research participants also members of the relevant disadvantaged group, despite the fact that our theoretical focus was on the behavior of members of the advantaged group. We therefore collected data also from Black participants (n = 43, 53.5% female, age: M = 31.2, SD = 9.6). As communicated to the participants, at the conclusion of the study, we randomly selected two 4-person groups of White participants and two 4-person groups of Black participants, matched them randomly, and paid all 16 individuals based on their actual decisions in the game.

Each participant was endowed with 10 tokens, read detailed game instructions (using the same parameters noted above for the parochial and universalistic NSDGs), and decided how to allocate the tokens between the private, in-group, and collective pools. Each participant made a single decision (per pool) in a single game. Consistent with previous research (Halevy & Halali, 2015; Nakashima, Halali, & Halevy, 2017), we phrased the instructions in neutral language, with no mention of the words “cooperation” or “competition,” and used colors to label the in-group and collective pools.

Participants subsequently indicated their agreement with each of the statements in a 16-item SDO Scale (Pratto et al., 1994) using rating scales ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7; α = .95). Example items include “Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups,” “It’s probably a good thing that certain groups are at the top and other groups are at the bottom,” “Group equality should be our ideal” (reverse-coded), and “We should do what we can to equalize conditions for different groups” (reverse-coded). Finally, participants answered additional questions for exploratory purposes and reported their demographics.

Results and Discussion

Given our factorial design, we performed a three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with pool as a within-participant factor (private, in-group, and collective), version of the NSDG as a between-participant factor (parochial vs. universalistic), and SDO as a continuous variable. Since all the participants allocated exactly 10 tokens between the three different pools, there was no variance between participants across the different levels of the pool factor. Therefore, the main effects of the NSDG and SDO factors, and their interaction, which are tested across the three levels of the pool factor, were uninterpretable in our analysis. This analysis tested our hypotheses concerning the association of SDO with contributions to the different pools via the two-way interaction between SDO and pool and explored whether this association behaved differently in the two different NSDGs (via the three-way interaction between SDO, pool, and NSDG).

Our analysis revealed a significant main effect of pool, F(2, 818) = 10.83, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .03, indicating larger contributions to the private (M = 57.6%, SD = 37.5) as compared with the in-group (M = 18.3%, SD = 25.8) and collective (M = 24.1%, SD = 30.8) pools. It also showed a significant Pool × NSDG interaction, F(2, 818) = 7.28, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .02, and a significant Pool × SDO interaction, F(2, 818) = 10.42, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .02. The three-way interaction was not significant, F(2, 818) = 1.28, p = .28.

A follow-up analysis of the Pool × NSDG interaction predictably revealed that the universalistic NSDG inspired larger contributions to the collective pool relative to the parochial NSDG (33.0% vs. 15.0% of the tokens), F(1, 409) = 38.0, p < .001, η² = .09, at the expense of contributions to the in-group pool (12.8% vs. 24.1% of the tokens), F(1, 409) = 20.89, p < .001, η² = .05. Contributions to the private pool did not significantly differ between two NSDG conditions (54.3% vs. 60.9%), F(1, 409) = 2.92, p = .088.

Lastly, a follow-up analysis of the Pool × SDO interaction enabled us to test our two competing hypotheses. SDO correlated negatively with contributions to the collective pool (β = −.19, p < .001, 95% CI [−.28, −.09]), positively with contributions to the private pool (β = .17, p < .001, 95% CI [.07, .26]), and was unrelated to contributions to the in-group pool (β = −.02, p = .67), lending support of Hypothesis 1b.

These findings show that, although high-SDO members of advantaged groups are parochial in their ideology, they behave selfishly. Specifically, they tend to keep to themselves the resources they withhold from members of disadvantaged groups rather than contribute them to strengthen the in-group. Studies 2 and 3 explored the extent to which this pattern generalizes to other intergroup contexts.

Study 2

The past few years witnessed upheaval in many Arab and Muslim countries (e.g., the “Arab Spring” in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt; intense warfare in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan) that resulted in millions of displaced individuals, many of whom sought refuge in other countries. This state of affairs stimulated fierce debates in many Western countries about security, immigration, and foreign aid. Social scientists responded by exploring how different concerns shape public opinion of asylum seekers in Europe (Bansak, Hainmueller, & Hangartner, 2016) and anti-Muslim attitudes in the United States (Steele, Parker, & Lickel, 2015). Recent research shows that Muslims and Arabs are currently the two most blatantly dehumanized groups in the United States (Kteily, Bruneau, Waytz, & Cotterill, 2015, study 1). We conducted Study 2 in this context of intense anti-Muslim sentiments in the United States.

Method

We recruited 311 Christian (53.91% female, age: M = 36.1, SD = 11.2) and 9 Muslim (11.1% female, age: M = 27.9, SD = 5.1) U.S.-based participants from MTurk. As in Study 1, the disproportionate sampling of members of the relevant advantaged group was driven by our theoretical interest and focus. Study 2’s design and procedure were identical to Study 1’s. We randomly assigned participants to the parochial (n = 154) or universalistic (n = 157) NSDG. Participants made their decisions and then completed the 16-item SDO Scale (α = .96). Participants received US$0.85 for their participation; in addition, we randomly selected two 8-person games and paid the participants based on their decisions as in Study 1.

Results and Discussion

We used the same three-way ANOVA as in Study 1 and fully replicated Study 1’s findings. The analysis found a significant main effect for pool, F(2, 614) = 15.47, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .05, indicating larger contributions to the private (M = 62.9%, SD = 36.2) compared to the in-group (M = 16.4%, SD = 23.4) and collective (M = 20.8%, SD = 28.9) pools. The analysis also indicated a significant Pool × NSDG interaction, F(2, 614) = 5.32, p = .005, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .02, and a significant Pool × SDO interaction, F(2, 614) = 8.37, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .03. The three-way interaction was not significant, F(2, 614) = 2.02, p = .13.

A follow-up analysis of the Pool × SDO interaction revealed larger contributions to the collective pool in the universalistic NSDG relative to the parochial NSDG (26.6% vs. 14.9%), F(1, 307) = 12.4, p < .001, η² = .04, at the expense of contributions to the in-group pool (13.0% vs. 19.8%), F(1, 307) = 6.8, p = .010, η² = .02. Contributions to the private pool did not differ between conditions (60.4% vs. 65.3%), F(1, 307) = 1.1, p = .30.

Finally, as in Study 1, a follow-up analysis of the Pool × SDO interaction provided support to Hypothesis 1b. Replicating Study 1, SDO correlated negatively with contributions to the collective pool (β = −.19, p < .001, 95% CI [−.30, −.09]), positively with contributions to the private pool (β = .17, p = .002, 95% CI [.06, .28]), and was unrelated to contributions to the in-group pool (β = −.03, p = .63).

Study 2’s findings suggest that, in the context of religious conflict in the United States, high-SDO members of an advantaged group tend to selfishly keep for themselves the resources they withhold from members of disadvantaged groups rather than parochially use them to benefit fellow in-group members.

Study 3

Study 3 explored the correlations between SDO and individual behavior in the context of the intractable conflict between Jewish and Palestinian citizens in Israel. Replicating the findings of Studies 1 and 2 in this context would demonstrate the robustness of the observed relations between SDO and individual behavior beyond U.S. conflicts and samples.

Method

Participants and Design

We recruited 197 Jewish (57.1% female, age: M = 25.8, SD = 4.9) and 14 Palestinian (92.9% female, age: M = 21.5, SD = 3.2)³ university students in Israel. As in Studies 1 and 2, the disproportionate sampling of members of the advantaged group was guided by our theoretical focus. Participants volunteered for an online study involving a “group decision-making task” in return for a 1-in-30 chance to earn money based on their own and others’ decisions in the task. As in Studies 1 and 2, we randomly selected two 8-person games and paid participants based on their decisions. Five participants were excluded from analyses because they did not complete the SDO Scale. We randomly assigned participants to the parochial (n = 96) or universalistic (n = 96) NSDG.

Procedure and Materials

Study 3 employed the same procedure and materials as Studies 1 and 2 with the following exceptions: Each participant was endowed with 20 (rather than 10) tokens they could allocate to one of the three pools in the game, the monetary payoffs were in Israeli Shekel (ILS) rather than USD (1 ILS ≈ 0.25 USD at the time of the study), and we employed a Hebrew version of the 16-item SDO questionnaire (α = .92; Roccas & Amit, 2011).

Results and Discussion

We used the same three-way ANOVA employed in Studies 1 and 2. Although participants made larger contributions to the private pool (M = 46.4%, SD = 33.8) compared to the in-group (M = 20.8%, SD = 26.7) and collective (M = 32.9%, SD = 33.7) pools, the main effect of pool was not significant, F(2, 376) = 2.18, p = .11. Replicating our previous findings, the analysis indicated a marginally significant Pool × NSDG interaction, F(2, 376) = 2.67, p = .071, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .01, and a significant Pool × SDO interaction, F(2, 376) = 4.01, p = .019, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .02. The three-way interaction was not significant, F(2, 376) = 0.29, p = .75.

Consistent with our previous studies, a follow-up analysis of the Pool × NSDG interaction revealed larger contributions to the collective pool in the universalistic NSDG compared to the parochial NSDG (41.9% vs. 23.9%), F(1, 188) = 16.2, p < .001, η² = .08, at the expense of contributions to the in-group pool (11.0% vs. 30.5%), F(1, 188) = 28.2, p < .001, η² = .13. Contributions to the private pool did not differ between conditions (47.1% vs. 45.6%), F(1, 188) = .01, p = .94.

Importantly, a follow-up analysis of the Pool × SDO interaction further supported the idea that high-SDO members of advantaged groups are parochial egoists (i.e., Hypothesis 1b). Consistent with our previous findings, SDO correlated negatively with contributions for the collective pool (β = −.14, p = .0499, 95% CI [−.28, −.0001]), positively with contributions to the private pool (β = .18, p = .015, 95% CI [.04, .32]), and was unrelated to contributions to the in-group pool (β = −.05, p = .46).

Study 3’s findings illustrate that the coupling of ideological parochialism and behavioral selfishness among high-SDO members of advantaged groups also generalizes to the context of an ethnopolitical conflict in the Middle East.

General Discussion

Three empirical studies found consistent support for the coupling of parochial ideology with selfish behavior: Across three distinct intergroup contexts, SDO correlated positively with the tendency to selfishly keep personal resources in economic games. Whereas SDO correlated negatively with universal cooperation, it was consistently unrelated to parochial cooperation. These findings shed new light on the claim that individuals higher in SDO view the world as a competitive jungle governed by “ruthless, amoral struggle for resources and power in which might is right and winning is everything” (Duckitt, Wagner, du Plessis, & Birum, 2002, p. 92). Specifically, they show that, at the intergroup level, these perceptions fuel ideological support of intergroup hierarchy, while at the intragroup level, they seem to fuel behavioral selfishness. The covariation of these ideological and behavioral tendencies gives rise to the pattern we labeled parochial egoism.

Theoretical Implications

The current research makes three contributions to the literature on intergroup relations. First, we elucidate the motivational meaning of SDO by demonstrating that members of advantaged groups higher in SDO are parochial egoists rather than parochial cooperators. Whereas early conceptualizations of SDO emphasized “that SDO is not simply repackaged interpersonal dominance” (Pratto, 1999, p. 205), our findings join recent evidence that consistently links ideological support of group-based advantage to multiple indices of selfishness and interpersonal competitiveness (e.g., narcissism, Machiavellianism, and power values; Ho et al., 2015; Livi et al., 2014; Pratto et al., 1994). Second, whereas much of the existing literature on SDO focuses on demonstrating associations between ideological support of group-based advantage and abstract values, worldviews, and attitudes (e.g., right-wing authoritarianism), the current research demonstrates that individual differences in SDO explain variance in economic behavior. Finally, the current research contributes to emerging theoretical and empirical work on the cooperation problem within dominant or hegemonic groups (De Dreu et al., 2016) by demonstrating that the preference for group-based hierarchy is distinct from the willingness to engage in costly individual behavior to establish group superiority.

Research Limitations and Future Directions

The current research utilized established measures and paradigms to assess SDO (Pratto et al., 1994) and individual behavior in intergroup interactions (Wit & Kerr, 2002). Although the observed associations between SDO and individual behavior replicated across three different contexts, their overall magnitude was small, consistent with previous research that employed similar methodologies (Balliet, Tybur & Wu, 2016; Haesevoets, Folmer, & Van Hiel, 2015). A possible explanation for the relatively weak associations has to do with abstract nature of ideology versus the concrete nature of individual behavior in experimental decision-making paradigms. Previous research on the association between values and behavior showed that abstract values are more likely to be manifested behaviorally when people think abstractly about their actions (Torelli & Kaikati, 2009). Additionally, values have been shown to predict behavioral intentions for the distant future more than behavioral intentions for the near future (Eyal, Sagristano, Trope, Liberman, & Chaiken, 2009). Future research may manipulate the extent to which individuals think abstractly versus concretely about intergroup interactions to explore whether construal level moderates the magnitude of the associations between ideology and behavior.

Future research may also benefit from exploring potential moderators of the magnitude of the relation between SDO and parochial cooperation. For instance, the nature and intensity of intergroup threat experienced by members of advantaged groups may play role in shaping the association between ideology and intergroup behavior (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005; Riek, Mania, & Gaertner, 2006). Finally, future research utilizing NSDGs to study intergroup behavior could systematically vary the outcomes associated with selfish behavior, parochial cooperation, and universal cooperation to further explore how the tension between these behavioral alternatives shapes individual behavior in intergroup interactions (cf. Halevy, Weisel & Bornstein, 2012).

Conclusion

There is little doubt that violent intergroup conflict is one of the gravest problems facing the world today. From the divisive 2016 Presidential election in the United States to the deadly White nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, from the Brexit referendum in the UK to the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and from terrorist attacks in Europe to the horrors of the civil war in Syria, recent events have emphasized the need to better understand the dynamics of intergroup conflict. The current findings enhance our understanding of the relations between ideology and individual behavior during intergroup interactions. Hopefully, a better understanding of the social psychological forces that shape intergroup relations will aid in developing collectively beneficial interventions.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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