Why do we fight?

“My belief is that intergroup conflict will always be with us, but that we can learn to manage it better,” says Steve Neuberg, a faculty affiliate of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict and Foundation Professor in the department of psychology at Arizona State University, in a wide-ranging discussion on Science Live, a weekly chat series hosted by Science magazine.

Neuberg, an evolutionary psychologist, discusses his research on the dynamics of intergroup conflict in response to the question, “Why Do We Fight?”

In his research, which is supported by a variety of funders, including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes for Mental Health, Neuberg seeks to understand the origins and nature of prejudice, as well as how religion may shape conflict among groups.

According to Neuberg, “Us-Them” thinking is a fundamental, evolved aspect of human psychology.

“Humans have long been ultrasocial animals,” Neuberg says. “That is, we’re highly interdependent and cooperative, which enabled our ancestors to solve challenges [such as] predatory threat, resource acquisition, and the like – generally more effectively than they could address those challenges as individuals …”

He goes on to point out that such cooperation is generally limited, however, to an ingroup versus an outgroup.

“It is a bit of an irony that the same evolved mechanisms that enhance ingroup compassion and sacrifice also contribute greatly to intergroup conflict,” Neuberg says.

Joining Neuberg in the live chat was Scott Atran, the director of anthropology research at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, whose work includes studies of sacred values and conflict, suicide bombers, and why people in conflict may make seemingly irrational choices, and Elizabeth Culotta, a contributing news editor at Science Magazine who moderated the discussion.

Questions from the moderator as well as those submitted by the audience covered a wide variety of topics, including suicide bombing, the role of testosterone in violent conflict, whether religion is the cause of war and violence, and strategies for developing peace in the face of what appears to be our evolved tendency towards conflict.

See a complete transcript of the discussion.