Effects of conflict on resistance and cooperation in hierarchical groups

Many social organisms engage in collective actions in which there is a mismatch between individual and common interest. Such problems may include competition with other groups or collaborative efforts to secure resources from the environment. In this thesis I test novel theoretical predictions which see hierarchy as one potential solution to the collective action problem at hand. More specifically, models have shown that high-rank individuals in hierarchical groups are expected to contribute more toward the group’s success than low-rank individuals during inter-group conflict. This pattern of contribution by the high-rank group members is expected to increase the group effort of hierarchical groups in comparison to egalitarian groups. However, the increased individual effort of high-rank individuals is expected to reduce their net benefits in comparison to individuals with lower rank. To study these effects, I devised eight behavioural experiments with more than 2300 participants from three national cultures which operationalized hierarchy in both political and economic terms. In these experiments, I utilized a behavioural game theory paradigm called the contest game, which simulates an inter-group collective action problem in experimental settings. Results from the thesis suggest that in economic hierarchy high-rank players may contribute more than low-rank players, while in political hierarchy this may not be the case. Groups with economic hierarchy exerted less effort than groups without such hierarchy (e.g. egalitarian), mainly due to a reduced contribution of the low-rank players. However, groups with political hierarchy usually exerted more effort than politically egalitarian groups. These findings suggest that the type of hierarchy is important, as it leads to different results in terms of contribution both at the individual and at the group level. Further to the these questions, I studied the effect of the collective action problem type, gender, and cognitive processing on the contribution preferences of players. Results suggest that usually inter-group conflict is not important for the contribution preferences of players. Furthermore, the gender of participants and the decision making speed were not important factors for their relative contribution as well, neither under political, nor under economic hierarchy.