Lecturer: Prof. Nir Halevy, Stanford University

Lecture Title: Ingroup Love and Outgroup Hate in Intergroup Conflict

 

 

Abstract: Why do decision-makers choose warfare over welfare? The human tendency to stick to default options prompts decision-makers to disproportionally choose whichever behavioral option is designated as default. Three experiments, including incentivized behavioral studies and a policy recommendations study, examined the power of defaults to shape war and peace. When war was presented as the default option, a vast majority of participants in our studies supported war over peace behaviorally and attitudinally. In contrast, when investing resources in within-group causes – such as health, education, and infrastructure – was presented as the default option, the vast majority of participants endorsed this peaceful option. These findings explain the stickiness of war and identify a potential solution to the problem of intergroup conflict: changing the defaults that govern intergroup behavior.