War exposure, altruism and the recalibration of welfare tradeoffs towards threatening social categories

• Published in: Journal of experimental social psychology Vol. 94; p. 104101
• Main Authors: Hall, Jonathan, Kahn, Dennis T., Skoog, Eric, Öberg, Magnus
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01-05-2021
• Subjects: Altruism; Threat perceptions; War exposure; Welfare tradeoff ratio; Threat perceptions; Welfare tradeoff ratio; War exposure; Altruism
• ISSN: 0022-1031; 1096-0465; 1096-0465
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104101

How does war shape human altruism? Some find warfare increases generosity within groups only. Others maintain that war's prosocial effects extend to outgroup members as well. To make sense of these disparate findings, we offer a theoretical framework that highlights the role of threat sensitivity in altruism. Refugees from Syria and Iraq (N = 1521) completed a welfare tradeoff task and threat perceptions scale where the other's group identity, gender and age were experimentally varied. We found that individuals belonging to social categories associated with more threat (outgroup members, males, and younger individuals) were afforded less altruism compared to individuals belonging to non-threatening social categories (ingroup members, females and the elderly). War exposure enhanced bias against threatening social categories through increased threat-sensitivity. Our results have implications for understanding how warfare shapes altruism and welfare tradeoffs in light of cross-cutting social categories and for policies promoting post-conflict cooperation.