14ALL investigates the conditions under which groups may trigger aggressive behavior in individual members and fuel retaliatory cycles, magnifying intergroup conflict's consequences. We expect that aggression is more likely when group identity is salient, and members invest in building group reputation. Furthermore, we expect that individuals who forgive or avenge aggression will gain social status to the extent that group members perceive them to be motivated by concern for the group rather than the self. 14ALL adopts a set of complementary research methods and consists of three parts. First, we use a laboratory experiment to determine when group membership and reputation promote aggression. Second, we will conduct a survey experiment on a representative sample of the national population to investigate when the group socially rewards vengeful or forgiving behavior. Third, we will develop an empirically calibrated agent-based model to simulate large-scale implications, test findings generalizability and support counterfactual analysis. Findings and simulation tools will be presented to stakeholders to explore policies to mitigate intergroup conflict in various settings, such as interethnic conflicts, political extremism, and hooliganism.

PI: Davide Barrera (CPS)

Periods of hardship can spur social conflict and hostile behavior toward minorities. To increase their political consensus, opportunistic politicians often exploit the crisis and scapegoat minority groups, portraying them as a threat to citizens’ well-being. The COVID-19 crisis was no exception: to make refugee arrivals more threatening, some Italian right-wing politicians blamed migrants for spreading the virus. This project investigates through a survey experiment whether slanted narratives about immigration affect socio-political and economic preferences and behavior in times of profound socio-economic distress. Although theories predict that such slanted narratives increase anti-immigrant attitudes, in fact, they do not. Rather, by undermining political and social cohesion and trust in institutions, they turn out to be counterproductive for society.

PI: Pierluigi Conzo (ESt and CCA)

• Conzo, P., Fuochi, G., Anfossi, L., Spaccatini, F., & Mosso, C. O. (2021). Negative media portrayals of immigrants increase ingroup favoritism and hostile physiological and emotional reactions. Scientific reports, 11(1), 1-11

• Della Giusta, M. and S. Bosworth (2020). Bias and Discrimination: What do We Know? in Sevilla, A. Ed., Special Issue on Gender, Oxford Review of Economic Policy Vol 36 (4)

• Szekely, A., Andrighetto, G., Payette, N., & Tummolini, L. (2020). Aggression, conflict, and the formation of intimidating group reputation. Social psychology quarterly, 83(1), 70-87.

• Szekely, A., & Gambetta, D. (2020). Does information about toughness decrease fighting? Experimental evidence. PloS one, 15(2), e0228285.

• Przepiorka, W., Rutten, C., Buskens, V., & Szekely, A. (2020). How dominance hierarchies emerge from conflict: A game theoretic model and experimental evidence. Social science research, 86, 102393. 

• Gambetta, D., & Przepiorka, W. (2019). Sharing compromising information as a cooperative strategy. Sociological Science, 6, 352-379.