Ethnic Hostility and Conflict

Ethnic hostility can fuel violent conflicts between ethnic groups. Thus, a fundamental question is how common desire to malevolently harm ethnic out-group members is, and in what situations it is most prone to manifest. This chapter reviews advances in the study of these questions, revolving along three complementary themes. First, we focus on measurement of ethnic hostility. We describe behavioral tasks designed to identify unambiguously hostile behavior and different ways to signal ethnic identity. We also discuss methodological challenges and ways that researchers have used to address them. Second, we review evidence that tests the existence of ethnic biases in pro-social and hostile behavior. While there is a rich body of lab-in-the-field experiments measuring ethnic biases in pro-social behavior, there are still only a handful of studies measuring ethnic biases in purely hostile behavior. Third, given that many real-life inter-group conflicts are characterized by relatively sudden changes in the behavior of masses towards aggression, an active area of research has begun to explore potential triggers and magnifiers of the strength of group identity, and of group-based pro-sociality and hostility. We review studies that focus on the roles of financial scarcity, stress, exposure to war, and social influences that unravel social norms. We highlight common patterns and suggest open questions in this important research agenda.