Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-8wtlm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-29T11:24:52.436Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What motivates devoted actors to extreme sacrifice, identity fusion, or sacred values?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Scott Atran  and
Ángel Gómez Open the ORCID record for Ángel Gómez [Opens in a new window]
Scott Atran
Affiliation:
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France Changing Character of War Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. scott.atran@pmb.ox.ac.ukhttp://www.hmc.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-scott-atran/
Ángel Gómez
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain. agomez@psi.uned.eshttps://angelgomezjimenez.webnode.es/ Artis International, Scottsdale, AZ 85824.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why do some individuals willingly make extreme sacrifices for their group? Whitehouse argues that such willingness stems from a visceral feeling of oneness with the group – identity fusion – that emerges from intense, shared dysphoric experiences or from perceived close kinship with others. Although Whitehouse's argument makes a valuable contribution to understanding extreme sacrifice, factors independent of identity fusion, such as devotion to sacred values, can predict self-sacrifice.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e193
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Atran, S. (2010) Talking to the enemy: Violent extremism, sacred values, and what it means to be human. Penguin.Google Scholar
Atran, S. & Ginges, J. (2012) Religious and sacred imperatives in human conflict. Science 336(6083):855–57.Google Scholar
Atran, S., Medin, D., Ross, N., Lynch, E., Vapnarsky, V., Ucan Ek', E., Coley, J., Timura, C. & Baran, M. (2002) Folkecology, cultural epidemiology, and the spirit of the commons: A garden experiment in the Maya Lowlands, 1991–2001. Current Anthropology 43:421–50.Google Scholar
Atran, S., Sheikh, H. & Gómez, Á. (2014) Devoted actors fight for close comrades and sacred cause. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111:17702–703.Google Scholar
Atran, S., Waziri, H., Gómez, Á., Sheikh, H., López-Rodríguez, L., Rogan, C. & Davis, R. (2018) The Islamic State's lingering legacy among young men from the Mosul area. CTC Sentinel 11:15–22.Google Scholar
Baron, J. & Spranca, M. (1997) Protected values. Organizational Behavior and Decision Processes 70:1–16.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. (1871) The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. John Murray.Google Scholar
Dehghani, M., Atran, S., Iliev, R., Sachdeva, S., Medin, D. & Ginges, J. (2010) Sacred values and conflict over Iran's nuclear program. Judgment and Decision Making 5:540–46.Google Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1912) Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse [The elementary forms of religious life]. Félix Alcan.Google Scholar
Ginges, J., Atran, S., Medin, D. & Shikaki, K. (2007) Sacred bounds on rational resolution of violent political conflict. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104(18):7357–60.Google Scholar
Ginges, J., Atran, S., Sachdeva, S. & Medin, D. (2011) Psychology out of the laboratory: The challenge of violent extremism. The American Psychologist 66(6):5019.Google Scholar
Gómez, A., Brooks, M. L., Buhrmester, M. D., Vázquez, A., Jetten, J. & Swann, W. B. Jr., (2011a) On the nature of identity fusion: Insights into the construct and a new measure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100:918–33.Google Scholar
Gómez, A., López-Rodríguez, L., Sheikh, H., Ginges, J., Wilson, L., Waziri, H., Vázquez, A., Davis, R. & Atran, S. (2017) The devoted actor's will to fight and the spiritual dimension of human conflict. Nature Human Behaviour 1(9):673–79. doi: 10.1038/s41562-017-0193-3.Google Scholar
Gómez, A., López-Rodríguez, L., Vázquez, A., Paredes, B. & Martínez, M. (2016a) Morir y matar por un grupo o un valor. Estrategias para evitar, reducir y/o erradicar el comportamiento grupal extremista. Anuario de Psicología Jurídica 6:122–29.Google Scholar
Graham, J. & Haidt, J. (2013) Sacred values and evil adversaries. In: The social psychology of morality, ed. Shaver, P. & Mikulincer, M.. APA Books.Google Scholar
Rappaport, R. (1971) The sacred in human evolution. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 2:23–44.Google Scholar
Sageman, M. (2004) Understanding terror networks. University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Sheikh, H., Ginges, J. & Atran, S. (2013) Sacred values in intergroup conflict: Resistance to social influence, temporal discounting, and exit strategies. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1299:11–24.Google Scholar
Sheikh, H., Gómez, Á. & Atran, S. (2016) Empirical evidence for the devoted actor model. Current Anthropology 57:S204–209.Google Scholar
Swann, W. B. Jr., Buhrmester, M. D., Gómez, A., Jetten, J., Bastian, B., Vázquez, A., Ariyanto, A., Besta, T., Christ, O., Cui, L., Finchilescu, G., González, R., Goto, N., Homsey, M., Sharma, S., Susianto, H. & Zhang, A. (2014a) What makes a group worth dying for? Identity fusion fosters perception of familial ties, promoting self-sacrifice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106(6):912–26.Google Scholar
Swann, W. B. Jr., Gómez, A., Seyle, D. C., Morales, J. & Huici, C. (2009) Identity fusion: The interplay of personal and social identities in extreme group behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96(5):995–1011. doi: 10.1037/a0013668.Google Scholar
Swann, W. B. Jr., Gómez, Á., Vázquez, A. G., Guillamón, A., Segovia, S. & Carillo, B. (2015) Fusion with the cross-gender group predicts genital sex reassignment surgery. Archives of Sexual Behavior 44:1313–18.Google Scholar
Swann, W. B. Jr., Jetten, J., Gómez, Á., Whitehouse, H. & Bastian, B. (2012) When group membership gets personal: A theory of identity fusion. Psychological Review 119(3):441–56. doi: 10.1037/a0028589.Google Scholar
Tetlock, P. (2003) Thinking the unthinkable: Sacred values and taboo cognitions. Trends in Cognitive Science 7:320–24.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H. (2000) Arguments and icons: Divergent modes of religiosity. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H., McQuinn, B., Buhrmester, M. & Swann, W. (2014b) Brothers in arms: Libyan revolutionaries bond like families. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111:17783–85.Google Scholar