Collaborative Research: NSCC/SA Status, Manipulating Group Threats, & Conflict within & between Groups

合作研究：NSCC/SA 状态、操纵群体威胁、

• 批准号: 0904312
• 负责人: Stephen Benard
• 金额: $ 9.57万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0904312&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; NSCC; SA; Status

Previous research suggests that groups tend to become more cohesive or tightly bonded when facing threats from the outside, whether those threats come from other groups or from the natural world. In the face of such threats, people tend to become more self-sacrificing and more willing to place the good of the group over their own personal well-being. Furthermore, when a group is threatened, its members also become less likely to compete for positions of authority or dominance within the group, in favor of investing their effort and resources in helping the group as a whole succeed. While this tendency underlies many acts of great selflessness and heroism, it also may become a group's Achilles heel. Earlier experimental work by the researchers showed that some group members -- especially those with dominant positions within the group -- exploit people's tendency to behave altruistically in the face of threats to the group, by manufacturing false threats and profiting from the subsequent self-sacrifice of others. Dominant individuals can bolster their positions within the group by using the appearance of a threat to discourage competition for their position. This project extends these findings by exploring the mechanisms underlying this tendency of dominant group members to misrepresent threats to the group in order to maintain their position. The researchers also will explore the relationship between "threat fatigue," which occurs when group members become skeptical and unresponsive to apparent threats, and the extent to which individuals can obtain accurate information about the threats on their own. Finally, the researchers will investigate the dynamics of threat manipulation, testing whether patterns of threat manipulation and responses to such manipulation differ as a function of the nature of the group (i.e., democratic and non-democratic groups) and the nature of the threat (i.e., stemming from another group or from non-human causes such as natural disasters). The intellectual contributions thus include an enhanced understanding of why threat manipulation occurs, and how information, political institutions, and the nature of threats shape behavior. The broader impacts of this work include bringing together research from the biological and social sciences and applying it to interactions within and between nations. The dominance-threat manipulation link is crucial for understanding interactions between leaders and citizens, avoiding the costs and perils of inappropriately high or low vigilance, and for reducing corruption, abuses of power, manipulation of citizens by leaders, and apathy regarding alleged threats to national security.

以前的研究表明，当面临来自外部的威胁时，无论这些威胁来自其他群体还是来自自然世界，群体往往会变得更加团结或紧密。面对这样的威胁，人们往往会变得更加自我牺牲，更愿意将团体的利益置于个人福祉之上。此外，当一个群体受到威胁时，其成员也不太可能在群体中争夺权威或主导地位，而倾向于投入他们的努力和资源来帮助整个群体取得成功。虽然这种倾向是许多英勇行为的基础，但它也可能成为一个群体的致命弱点。研究人员早期的实验工作表明，一些群体成员-特别是那些在群体中占主导地位的人-通过制造虚假的威胁并从其他人随后的自我牺牲中获利，利用人们在群体面临威胁时表现出利他主义的倾向。支配型个体可以利用威胁的外表来阻止竞争，从而巩固自己在群体中的地位。这个项目扩展了这些发现，探索机制的优势群体成员歪曲威胁的群体，以保持自己的地位的倾向。研究人员还将探索“威胁疲劳”之间的关系，这种疲劳发生在群体成员对明显的威胁持怀疑态度和反应迟钝的情况下，以及个人能够自行获得有关威胁的准确信息的程度。最后，研究人员将调查威胁操纵的动态，测试威胁操纵的模式和对这种操纵的反应是否因群体的性质而不同（即，民主和非民主团体）和威胁的性质（即，由其他群体或自然灾害等非人类原因造成的）。因此，知识贡献包括对为什么会发生威胁操纵的理解，以及信息，政治制度和威胁的性质如何塑造行为。这项工作的更广泛影响包括汇集生物科学和社会科学的研究成果，并将其应用于国家内部和国家之间的互动。支配-威胁操纵联系对于理解领导人和公民之间的互动、避免不适当的高度或低度警惕所带来的成本和危险、减少腐败、滥用权力、领导人操纵公民以及对所谓的国家安全威胁漠不关心至关重要。