Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T13:21:59.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Group behavior in the military may provide a unique case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2016

Rose McDermott*
Affiliation:
Brown University, Department of Political Science, Providence, RI 02902. [email protected]

Abstract

The optimal functioning of male coalitionary behavior in a military context may run contrary to some of the arguments about the importance of individual differentiation in Baumeister et al. Incentives become institutionally inverted within military contexts. Because the history of combat exerted powerful and sustained selection pressures on male groups, individual identification can work against the successful completion of collective action problems surrounding in-group defense in military contexts.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boehm, C. (1999) Hierarchy in the forest: The evolution of egalitarian behavior. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bowles, S. (2009) Did warfare among ancestral hunter-gatherers affect the evolution of human social behaviors? Science 324(5932):1293–98.Google Scholar
MacCoun, R. J., Kier, E. & Belkin, A. (2006) Does social cohesion determine motivation in combat? An old question with an old answer. Armed Forces and Society 32(4):646–54.Google Scholar
McDonald, M. M., Navarrete, C. D. & Van Vugt, M. (2012) Evolution and the psychology of intergroup conflict: The male warrior hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1589):670–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wrangham, R. W. & Peterson, D. (1996) Demonic males: Apes and the origins of human violence. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Google Scholar