War, social preferences, and anti-outgroup behavior: Experimental evidence from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

How does war affect social preferences toward people with conflict-related outgroup identities? While the literature often reports prosocial treatment of ingroups, such benevolence is rarely seen toward potential outgroups. We consider the case of Ukraine, where many people with Russian identity markers reside. We ask whether people in Ukraine who identify as Russian by ethnicity or language have become stigmatized following Russia’s invasion. To measure social preferences, we introduce a variant of the Equality Equivalency Test (EET) as a third-party dictator game, where respondents decide between equal or unequal allocations of money involving two recipients. We run the EET in a January 2023 nationwide survey in Ukraine where dictator recipients are randomized by Ukrainian and Russian ethnicity, language, and/or Ukrainian civic identity. We also randomize priming on conflict-related victimization experiences. Despite widespread devastation across Ukraine by Russian forces, the majority of respondents, who identify as ethnic Ukrainians, treat Russian identifiers benevolently (fairly) relative to Ukrainians, and only a minority of respondents behaved malevolently (spitefully) toward them. Priming on victimization has minimal negative effects on benevolence. Our findings reinforce research on rising civic nationalism in Ukraine, transcending ethnolinguistic understandings of identity and belonging. Our results have implications for war as an instrument of nation-building and social cohesion, bolstering Ukraine’s ability to mitigate internal divisions amid Russia’s invasion.