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The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
13.2K
Impartial institutions, pathogen stress and the expanding social network
Daniel Hruschka1, Charles Efferson, Ting Jiang
1School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA, Daniel.Hruschka@asu.edu.
Human Nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)
|October 8, 2014
Summary
Societies with better public services and food security encourage impartiality towards strangers. This finding supports the material security hypothesis over the pathogen stress hypothesis in explaining in-group favoritism across cultures.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Cultural Anthropology
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Cross-cultural variation exists in impartiality towards strangers versus in-group favoritism.
- Existing hypotheses include pathogen stress and material security, but empirical behavioral evidence is limited.
Purpose of the Study:
- To behaviorally test adaptive hypotheses for in-group favoritism across diverse societies.
- To investigate the influence of pathogen stress and material security on impartiality.
Main Methods:
- Conducted behavioral experiments in eight diverse societies.
- Measured individuals' willingness to favor in-group members over impartial rules.
- Assessed societal quality of government services and food security.
Main Results:
- Societies with better government services and food security exhibited a stronger preference for impartial rules.
- Behavioral data supported the material security hypothesis.
- No support was found for the pathogen stress hypothesis regarding in-group favoritism.
Conclusions:
- Material security and social institutions significantly influence impartiality and in-group favoritism.
- In-group favoritism is linked to adaptive fit with a society's institutions, not pathogen threat.
- Behavioral measures provide crucial insights into cultural variations in social preferences.
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