People perform greater within-group cooperation when their groups face external threats, such as hostile outgroups or natural disasters. Researchers and social commentators suggest that high-ranking group members manipulate this “threat-dependent” cooperation by exaggerating threats in order to promote cooperation and suppress competition for their position. However, little systematic research tests this claim or possible situational moderators. In three studies, we use a cooperative group game to show that participants pay to increase others’ perceptions of group threats, and spend more on manipulation when holding privileged positions. This manipulation cost-effectively elicits cooperation and sustains privilege, and is fostered by competition over position, not only position per se. Less cooperative people do more manipulation than more cooperative people do. Furthermore, these effects generalize to broader definitions of privilege. Conceptually, these results offer new insights into an understudied dimension of group behavior. Methodologically, the research extends cooperative group games to allow for analyzing more complex group dynamics.

Funding: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. (NSF grant 0904312) in conjunction with the Minerva Initiative of the U.S. Department of Defense, as well by the Cornell University Institute for Social Sciences. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or other sponsors.

Introduction

In George Orwell’s novel 1984, the ruling party perpetuates apparent war to create solidarity and support for their leader and to suppress questioning of their regime. Although this example is fictional, many real group leaders – political and otherwise – have been accused of creating simulated or actual threats to the group to rally support for their leadership. In the United States, for example, such allegations have been leveled at presidents from both major parties [1]–[2]. More broadly, some commentators argue that leaders commonly exaggerate threats as a political strategy for generating in-group solidarity [3]–[4]. Given the well-documented tendency of individuals to unite and cooperate in the face of a common threat ([5]–[10], reviewed by [11]–[12]), groups might be especially vulnerable to this type of manipulation. Specifically, by encouraging group members to direct resources towards coping with a threat, high-ranking group members could reduce the capacity of individuals to invest those resources in competing for rank within the group. However, despite widespread allegations of threat manipulation in popular culture, it has received little systematic empirical attention from psychologists.

As a result, we know little about the conditions under which individuals will deceive their groups about the likelihood of potential threats, and the degree to which such threats are actually effective. This is surprising, given that threat manipulation holds theoretical implications for the study of group processes, power, and cooperation, as well as practical implications for the study of politics and other real-world competitions for rank. To address this gap, we test hypotheses regarding the antecedents and effects of threat manipulation in three studies. We show that high-ranking individuals manipulate threats more than low-ranking individuals, even when all individuals can manipulate and “rank” is thinly defined. We further show that threat manipulation is cost effective and is driven by competition over rank, not only possession of high rank. Our results demonstrate the existence of threat manipulation, as well as key moderators.

The Puzzle of Cooperation To understand threat manipulation, we first elaborate on its theoretical rationale. For high-ranking persons, inducing other group members to cooperate poses a challenge. Indeed, understanding why people cooperate within groups is a central puzzle in many disciplines [13]–[17]. The puzzle of cooperation is that it increases group productivity, success, and even survival, but the associated costs tend to decrease cooperators’ net payoffs relative to non-cooperators [18]–[19]. For example, defending one’s group during intergroup conflict increases the group’s chances of survival, but puts oneself at greater risk than those who do not contribute to defending the group. Additionally, costly cooperation reduces an individual’s ability to compete over hierarchical position within groups, e.g. wealth, dominance, or other forms of social rank. Many real-world groups – including political parties, firms, labor unions, gangs, and non-human societies – are characterized by hierarchies, in which high-ranking members have greater access to resources, but also face competition for their positions from low-ranking members [12], [18], [20]. Competing for position in a hierarchy can be costly, requiring time, effort, or other resources. As such, there exists a trade-off between investing in cooperation to produce collective benefit, versus investing in within-group competition in a hierarchy [18], [21]–[22]. For example, there are often power struggles within political parties and coalitions, but such internal battles can leave them too weak to contest a general election successfully (for a discussion of these dynamics, see [23]). This trade-off is most pronounced in hierarchies based on dominance (i.e. rank based on raw competitive power) such as those found in dictatorships [24], youth gangs [20], among prisoners [25], and many non-human societies [26], but may even exist within some prestige-based hierarchies based on respect and social skills (for the distinction between dominance and prestige, see [27]; our research focuses more on the former.

External Threats Promote within-Group Cooperation Despite the disincentives for costly cooperation, individuals can benefit from it under some circumstances. Notably, costly cooperation can be individually beneficial if groups risk failure due to external threats, such as harsh environmental conditions, natural disasters, or intergroup competition [14], [16], [28]. Group membership provides direct and indirect benefits in many species [17], [29], giving individuals a stake in their group’s continued existence [17], [30]–[31]. When the existence of a valued group is threatened, cooperation can be individually beneficial if it aids group well-being, provided that intra-group competition is not too intense [14], [19], [21]–[22]. As a result, an individual’s cooperation level should vary according to the relative pressures of intra- and intergroup competition. Such “threat-dependent” strategies – cooperating when one’s group faces extinction but free-riding when the group prospers – may play an important role in cooperation [30], [32]–[33]. Individuals benefit from cooperating in response to group threats because they benefit from group survival under unstable conditions, yet benefit from selfishness under stable conditions [30]. Because it is beneficial, this “threat-dependent cooperation” could be rationally chosen, learned via reinforcement, or evolved via natural selection (we are agnostic as to the specific developmental process). Accordingly, humans cooperate more when faced with group failure [16], [34] or intergroup competition [5], [9], [12], [32], [35]–[36]; similar effects have been found in non-humans [33]. However, comparatively little work has examined how others might exploit this behavior.

Do People Manipulate Apparent Threats? We suggest that the tendency of groups to cohere when threatened leaves them vulnerable to exploitation by manipulation of apparent threats. Given that cooperation decreases one’s ability to compete for group resources, yet increases the total available group resources, group members benefit from manipulating others’ perceptions of group threats in order to encourage cooperation and reduce others’ competitiveness [8], [30]. Such manipulation of apparent group threats could occur in any social system (human or non-human) in which there is competition over positions in a hierarchy, especially when individuals benefit from cooperating to prevent adverse group outcomes, because this manipulation allows one to claim a larger relative share of a larger public good. The methods of manipulation could include reminders of past attacks or disasters [10], [37] or mortality [38], use of “us versus them” language [39], appearances of constant vigilance [10], (un)conscious overestimates and over-responses to potential threats, or even actually increasing intergroup conflict or other threats [39]. Non-humans could use false appearances of vigilance, or false alarm calls [40].

Manipulation and Privileged Group Members In most popular accounts of threat manipulation, leaders manipulate followers. Why should we expect high-ranking group members to manipulate threats to a greater degree than low-ranking group members? Although definitions of rank and privilege vary (see below), in theory those who hold privileged positions particularly benefit from manipulating perceived threats [30] to increase group productivity and suppress competition over relative position. This is because they (a) have greater access to group resources by definition [18], [27], (b) have the most to lose by intra-group competition, and (c) can disrupt alliances and “revolutionary coalitions” [41] against themselves. In contrast, the benefits of manipulation are mixed for low-ranking participants. Those lower in the hierarchy may also benefit somewhat from increased group cooperation, but due to their weaker position they must often collaborate in order to successfully compete with a higher-ranking group member [41]. For those low in the hierarchy, the risk of manipulating threats is that they will undermine coalition formation, by encouraging other low-ranking group members to direct resources towards the apparent threat rather than in efforts to supplant the privileged individuals. In addition to alleged political examples [1]–[2], there is anecdotal evidence suggesting that other types of leaders or privileged persons will manipulate others’ perceptions of group threats [6], [42]. However, there is little experimental evidence, let alone investigations as to the factors that promote such behavior. More generally however, our argument is consistent with recent work suggesting that leaders will act against their group’s interest. For example, recent work has shown that holding a privileged position within a group increases tendencies associated with selfish behavior, including disinhibition [43], objectification of others [44], and decreased perspective-taking ([45], reviewed by [46]). In addition, Maner and Mead [47] found that some people who were assigned leadership positions were willing to withhold helpful information from the group or exclude potential competitors, even when doing so reduced the group’s productivity, though this tendency disappeared under intergroup competition. Thus, holding a privileged position in a group can increase selfish behavior (though does not uniformly do so, [48]). Thus, while research is consistent with our argument, it remains unknown whether high-ranking group members will create false threats to suppress within-group competition and promote within-group cooperation, and if so, what situational factors moderate this behavior. Unlike the findings described above, threat manipulation requires that privileged individuals actually deceive their fellow group members, and can result in the collapse of the entire group if it results in a failure to cooperate. In addition, our work examines cases in which it is personally costly to manipulate threats, whether this provision of false information is effective, whether it pays off, and how competition for rank will affect group cooperation and stability.

The Current Studies We designed an experimental game to test the predictions that: People pay to increase (rather than decrease) others’ perceptions of group threats; Those possessing high (dominance-based) rank will do so more than those possessing low rank; Such strategies are cost-effective at eliciting cooperation and suppressing competition; Competition over high-ranking positions increases manipulation, not only possession of these positions themselves (Study 2); Individuals manipulate threats for personal gain, rather than to enhance group welfare (Studies 1–2). We used a three-person public goods game, which are common in economics [49]–[52], biology [16], [32]; psychology [15], [53], sociology [34], and other disciplines [54]. We based our public goods game on “tug-of-war” models of cooperation [18], [21], in which one group member occupied a high-resource, contestable position. In this game, cooperation increased group earnings and success but decreased one’s individual earnings and likelihood of achieving this privileged position. While abstract, such games model the incentive structure of many real-world situations in which individual and collective interests are in tension. Manipulation in our experiment can function as model for many types of real-world manipulation, such as exaggerating the threat of natural disasters or intergroup conflict. To avoid possible confusion, we clarify the goals of the paper and our operational definition of rank.

Testing the Structural Factors, not the Underlying Psychology Our goal is to examine structural factors that lead people to manipulate group threats. We are not testing the specific proximate psychological mechanisms underlying such manipulation. These psychological causes could include rational utility maximization, power-motivated approach tendencies, and implicit or explicit goals of holding rank or power. We are agnostic about the underlying psychology. Instead, we seek to examine circumstances under which threat manipulation arises, as well as the benefits that accrue for doing so. These questions are important to answer in order to understand the circumstances in which such psychologies will be activated outside the laboratory. Thus our focus is on behavior and its functional and situational causes, not psychological processes per se.