While initiating a conflict can sometimes lead to maximizing ingroup gains, it comes at high costs for the individual. Nevertheless, certain individuals are motivated to do so. The individual’s...Show moreWhile initiating a conflict can sometimes lead to maximizing ingroup gains, it comes at high costs for the individual. Nevertheless, certain individuals are motivated to do so. The individual’s need for affiliation might influence this because people high in the need for affiliation find good interpersonal relations important and want to benefit the ingroup (McClelland, 1961). This study hypothesizes that a high need for affiliation compared to a low need for affiliation increases the likelihood of investing in outgroup harm and thus initiating conflict. Participants (N = 126) engaged in the Intergroup Prisoner’s Dilemma-Maximizing Difference (IPD-MD) game with modifications of efficiency (Halevy et al., 2008). They responded to the six-item Unified Motive Scale (UMS-6) measure of the need for affiliation (Schönbrodt & Gerstenberg, 2012). Opposite to the hypothesis, the findings showed that a low need for affiliation predicted inclinations for initiating conflict if initiating conflict maximized the gains for the ingroup. Surprisingly, thriving for maximum gains for the ingroup motivated people with a low need for affiliation to initiate conflict but not people with a high need for affiliation. Possibly, the increased need to be cooperative amongst people high in the need for affiliation also comprises the outgroup (Halevy et al., 2008), inhibiting people high in the need for affiliation to initiate conflict. This work suggests that alternative individual differences, like ingroup identification, should be studied to enhance understanding of why, when and by whom conflict gets initiated.Show less
