Local competition increases people's willingness to harm others

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary biology
• Behavioral economics
• Social psychology

Background:

• Costly harming behavior can evolve when it increases an individual's fitness relative to competitors.
• Local competition, where individuals compete with nearby partners, is hypothesized to favor such behaviors.
• Previous research lacked direct experimental evidence linking local competition to increased harmful behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test the prediction that people are more willing to inflict costly harm under local competition compared to global competition.
• To investigate the effect of earned versus given money on harmful behavior.
• To examine whether local competition influences harm directed towards ingroup versus outgroup members.

Main Methods:

• A game theoretic model was developed to illustrate the prediction.
• A series of economic games were conducted where participants could spend money to inflict financial losses on others.
• Competition scale was manipulated by awarding prizes based on local (per social partner set) or global (all participants) payoffs.

Main Results:

• Participants exhibited significantly more harmful behavior when competition was local compared to global.
• This effect persisted even when participants "earned" their competition money.
• Under local competition, participants were more willing to harm ingroup members than outgroup members.

Conclusions:

• Local competition increases the propensity for individuals to engage in costly harming behavior.
• This effect is robust whether resources are given or earned.
• Local competition can exacerbate ingroup hostility by directing harmful behavior towards relevant competitors.