ETHNOCENTRISM AND ETHNIC CONFLICT

Ethnocentrism And Ethnic Conflict

Ethnocentrism And Ethnic Conflict

Introduction

Ethnocentrism is a nearly universal syndrome of attitudes and behaviors. Behaviors associated with ethnocentrism include cooperation with members of the in-group, but not out-groups. We show that ethnocentric behavior can emerge from a simple evolutionary model of local competition between individuals. Our agent-based model treats interactions as one-move Prisoner's Dilemmas, and the inheritance of strategies as genetic, cultural, or (most plausibly) both. Results from the model demonstrate that ethnocentric behavior can evolve even when direct reciprocity is impossible, opportunities for “cheating” exist, and agents have minimal cognitive ability. When cooperating is relatively costly, ethnocentric behavior can even be necessary to sustain cooperation.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is a nearly universal syndrome of attitudes and behaviors. The attitudes include seeing one's own group (the in-group) as virtuous and superior and an out-group as contemptible and inferior. The attitudes also include seeing ones own standards of value as universal. The behaviors associated with ethnocentrism are cooperative relations with the in-group and absence of cooperative relations with the out-group (LeVine and Campbell, 1972). Membership in an ethnic group is typically evaluated in terms of one or more observable characteristics (such as language, accent, physical features, or religion) that are regarded as indicating common descent (Sumner 1906, Hirshfeld 1996, Kurzban, Tooby, and Cosmides 2001). Ethnocentrism has been implicated not only in ethnic conflict (Chirot and Seligman 2001, Brewer 1979b) and war (van der Dennen 1995), but also consumer choice (Klein and Ettenson 1999) and voting (Kinder, 1998). In short, ethnocentrism can be in-group favoritism or out-group hostility. This article offers a model to account for the evolution of ethnocentric behavior. Ethnocentric behavior is defined here as cooperation with members of one's own group, and noncooperation toward members of other groups. We show that ethnocentric behavior can emerge from a simple evolutionary model of local competition between individuals, without any explicit difference between the evolutionary process for dealing with members of ones own group and the evolutionary process for dealing with members of other groups.

What is Known and Theorized

In its broadest context, in-group favoritism can be considered a form of contingent cooperation. Viewed this way, in-group favoritism is a candidate to join the list of possible explanations for cooperation among egoists. The present state of knowledge identifies nine mechanisms that can, under different circumstances, support cooperation among egoists. Although a full literature review of each of these mechanisms would require thousands of citations, a few characteristic works suffice to suggest the nature of these mechanisms.

1. Central authority, typically a state or empire (Hobbes, 1651; Tilly, 1992).

2. Inclusive fitness based on kinship (Hamilton, 1964; Dawkins, 1989).

3. Barter and markets (Smith, 1776; Samuelson, 1947).

4. Principal-agent mechanisms, including employment (Spence and Zeckhauser, 1971).

5. Reciprocity based on continuing interaction (Trivers, 1971; Axelrod, 1984).

6. Decentralized enforcement, including norms (Axelrod, 1986; Hechter and Opp, 2001), informal institutions (Ostrom, 1998), trust (Hardin, 2002), and the more inclusive mechanism of social capital (Coleman, 1990; Putnam, ...