Intergroup violence : the effects of violent CREDs on perceived trustworthiness (poster)
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | While extravagant violent displays such as beheading videos by the Islamic State are ordinarily interpreted as attempts to intimidate enemies, they might also be an effective way to lure new members into violent groups and spread violent behavior via trust. Evolutionary concept of credibility enhancing displays (CREDs) – the cultural model’s congruence between words and deeds – can be used to study violent displays in intergroup conflict and explain how individuals join the fighting. As I have explored the question whether violent CREDs increase perceived trustworthiness of cultural models for other in-groups, this poster reports results of a preliminary experiment which used text vignettes and manipulated the presence of violent CREDs. In sum, in-groups who behaved violently against out-groups in the context of intergroup conflict were seen as more trustworthy by other in-groups than those who did not. Moreover, trustworthiness had a strong positive correlation with model’s prestige and a weak negative correlation with dominance. Thus, violent in groups in the context of intergroup conflict might be considered by other in-groups as desirable cultural models to learn from, as they behave as parochial altruists. The poster also presents forthcoming experiments, which will incorporate religion to the process of learning intergroup violence. Religious identity of violent cultural models should be fostering the transmission of violence because religion makes group identities salient, religious people are generally and globally seen as more moral and trustworthy than atheists, and hence possibly more desirable cultural models. The proposed designs would use various stimuli and measurements. Overall, the experiments should provide data assessing not only trustworthiness of violent models (ascribed quality), but also trust toward violent models (behavior), and the role of religion in such mechanisms. |
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