NWO Spinoza Award "Human Conflict and Cooperation"
Projecttitle: Human Cooperation and Conflict
Awardee: Carsten de Dreu
Team Members: Zsombor Meder (Assistent Professor, University of Groningen)
Luuk Snijder (2020 - 2024, PhD, Leiden University)
Jonas Stein (2025 - 2028, Postdoc, University of Groningen)
Luuk Snijder (2025 - 2029, Postdoc, University of Groningen
Funder: NWO (Spinoza Price 2018)
Period: August 2024 - August 2029
Project Description: Humans operate in groups that are oftentimes nested in multi-layered collectives like work units within departments and companies, neighborhoods within cities and regions within nation states. With psychological science mostly focusing on proximate reasons for individuals to join existing groups and how existing groups function, we still poorly understand why groups form ex nihilo, how groups evolve into complex multi-layered social structures, and what explains fission-fusion dynamics. Here we address group formation and the evolution of social organization at both the proximate and ultimate level of analysis. Building on models of fitness interdependence and cooperation, we propose that (i) socio-ecologies can create positive interdependencies among strangers and pave the way for the formation of stable coalitions and groups through (ii) reciprocity and reputation-based partner selection. Such groups are (iii) marked by in-group bounded, parochial cooperation together with (iv) an array of social institutions for managing the commons, allowing groups to scale in size and complexity while avoiding the break-down of cooperation. Our analysis reveals how distinct group cultures can endogenously emerge from reciprocal cooperation, that social identification and group commitment are likely consequences rather than causes of group cooperation, and when intergroup relations gravitate towards peaceful co-existence, integration, or conflict. Against this backdrop, the project develops and implements new programs of research on human cooperation and conflict within and between groups.
De Dreu, C.K.W , Gross J. , & Romano, A. (2023). Group Formation and the Evolution of Human Social Organization. In Perspectives on Psychological Science 2024, Vol. 19(2) 320 –334
De Dreu CKW, Gross J. (2019) Revisiting the form and function of conflict: Neurobiological, psychological, and cultural mechanisms for attack and defense within and between groups. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42, e116: 1–66. doi:10.1017/ S0140525X18002170
De Dreu CKW, Gross J. Farina, A. & Ma, Y. (2020) Group Cooperation, Carrying-Capacity Stress, and Intergroup Conflict. In Trend sin Cognitive Sciences, September 2020, Vol. 24, No. 9