504303

research-article2013
PSSXXX10.1177/0956797613504303Neuberg et al.Religion and Intergroup Conflict

Research Article

Psychological Science

Religion and Intergroup Conflict: Findings 2014, Vol. 25(1) 198206

The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/0956797613504303
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Steven L. Neuberg1,2,3, Carolyn M. Warner2,4, Stephen A. Mistler1,

Anna Berlin1,5, Eric D. Hill6, Jordan D. Johnson2,7,
Gabrielle Filip-Crawford1, Roger E. Millsap1, George Thomas2,4,
Michael Winkelman8, Benjamin J. Broome9, Thomas J. Taylor10,
and Juliane Schober7
1
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University; 2Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, Arizona State
University; 3Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity, Arizona State University; 4School of Politics and Global
Studies, Arizona State University; 5Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University; 6Department of
Psychological Sciences, Albion College; 7School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies, Arizona State
University; 8School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University; 9Hugh Downs School of Human
Communication, Arizona State University; and 10School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Arizona State University

Abstract
How might religion shape intergroup conflict? We tested whether religious infusionthe extent to which religious
rituals and discourse permeate the everyday activities of groups and their membersmoderated the effects of two
factors known to increase intergroup conflict: competition for limited resources and incompatibility of values held
by potentially conflicting groups. We used data from the Global Group Relations Project to investigate 194 groups
(e.g., ethnic, religious, national) at 97 sites around the world. When religion was infused in group life, groups were
especially prejudiced against those groups that held incompatible values, and they were likely to discriminate against
such groups. Moreover, whereas disadvantaged groups with low levels of religious infusion typically avoided directing
aggression against their resource-rich and powerful counterparts, disadvantaged groups with high levels of religious
infusion directed significant aggression against themdespite the significant tangible costs to the disadvantaged
groups potentially posed by enacting such aggression. This research suggests mechanisms through which religion may
increase intergroup conflict and introduces an innovative method for performing nuanced, cross-societal research.

Keywords
religion, religious beliefs, intergroup conflict, intergroup dynamics, prejudice, values, resources, competition, cross-
cultural, global, methods, cross-cultural differences, violence

Received 7/3/13; Revision accepted 8/9/13

Consider Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland,
Jews and Muslims in the Middle East, Muslims and Hindus
in South Asia, the religious right and secularists in the
United States: Religion certainly seems to contribute sub-
stantially to intergroup conflict.
Yet empirical knowledge about how religion might
shape such conflict, and even whether it does, is elusive.
Although some scholars view religion as a core cause of
conflict (e.g., Huntington, 1993; Kaplan, 2007), other
scholars view it as a mask for (or a post hoc justification
of) conflict that would otherwise occur for pragmatic rea-
sons (e.g., Berman, 2009; Fearon & Laitin, 2003). For
instance, are the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians
due to clashing religious values or to competition for
limited resources between two groups that are also dis-
tinguishable by religion? Further complicating the issue,
whereas research focusing on individual differences and
prejudice shows that religious people tend to be more
prejudiced than nonreligious people against out-group
Corresponding Author:
Steven L. Neuberg, Department of Psychology, Arizona State
University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104
E-mail: steven.neuberg@asu.edu
Religion and Intergroup Conflict 199
members (Hall, Matz, & Wood, 2010), research exploring
violent conflict between large groups suggests little evi-
dence of direct, main effects of religion (e.g., Fox, 2004;
Russett, Oneal, & Cox, 2000).
In the present research, we conducted a global study
that begins to clarify the relationships between religion
and intergroup conflict. We started with the knowledge
that religion is more than just a set of beliefs; it also
encompasses community practices, socialization func-
tions, organizational structures, and a range of other fea-
tures (e.g., Lincoln, 2003). The multifaceted nature of
religion means that there is little reason to assume that all
of its features relate to conflict in similar ways or even
relate to conflict at all.
We focused on religious infusionthe extent to which
religion permeates a groups private and public life.
Religious infusion is not tied to specific religions or sets
of beliefs; any religion can be highly infused throughout
a society, but infusion is not a necessary feature of any
particular religion. For example, our data reveal that
although religion is a highly dominant feature of life for
Catholics in Nicaragua, it is not so for Catholics in Austria.
Religious infusion is of special interest because of its
potential to engage powerful group processes. For
instance, frequent public practice of religion and engage-
ment in religion-tinged events and discourse may make
group norms (both descriptive and injunctive) especially
salient, elicit strong commitments to the group, and
enable especially effective intragroup communication
and coordination. Such group processes may increase the
likelihood that people will adopt and internalize predom-
inant group prejudices (e.g., toward other groups). Such
processes may also enhance collective motivation and a
groups capacity for collective action. Thus, groups with
high levels of religious infusion may be particularly
poised for and capable of effective intergroup conflict if
circumstances seem to call for it.
What might such circumstances be? Two pathways to
conflict have received much attention in psychology and
the social sciencesincompatibility of values and com-
petition over tangible resources. We propose that reli-
gious infusion modulates each pathway in ways that
increase the likelihood of conflict.
First, groups tend to be more prejudiced against and
hostile toward groups that have incompatible values
(e.g., Barker, Hurwitz, & Nelson, 2008; Biernat, Vescio,
Theno, & Crandall, 1996; Garcia-Retamero, Mller, &
Rousseau, 2012; Schwartz, Struch, & Bilsky, 1990). Values
have tangible consequences; they shape norms, policies,
laws, and all manner of individual and group decisions in
ways that disadvantage people whose values are not in
accord with those of the group, as when antiabortion
values lead to restricted access to abortion even for those
who value prochoice positions. Groups whose values are
tightly woven into everyday activityas is the case for
groups with high levels of religious infusionare thus
likely to feel particularly threatened by groups holding
incompatible values, given the relatively substantial
changes to group life that could result if those contradic-
tory values were to supersede their own. This sense of
threat will be especially strong if the targeted values are
seen as sacred and thus not readily compromised (Atran
& Ginges, 2012)and groups with higher levels of reli-
gious infusion may be more likely to view their values as
sacred. Thus, the extent to which incompatible values
lead to intergroup prejudices and hostility is likely to be
greater for groups with high levels of religious infusion
than for groups with low levels of religious infusion.
Second, intergroup prejudices and behavioral conflict
can result from competition over resources and power
(e.g., Campbell, 1965; Collier, Hoeffler, & Rohner, 2009;
Fearon & Laitin, 2003). This can occur when two poten-
tially competing groups possess relatively equal power
and resources, as Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, and Sherif
(1961/1988) demonstrated in their classic Robbers Cave
experiment. However, power and resources are often dis-
tributed unequally between potentially competing groups,
and inclinations toward intergroup conflict may manifest
differently for high- and low-power groups. Specifically,
even when weak and powerful groups are similarly preju-
diced against one another, powerful groups may more
readily engage less powerful groups in behavioral conflict
simply because they canbecause the costs of doing so
are low relative to the potential gain of additional
resources (e.g., Hegre, 2008). Although low-power groups
may also be highly motivated to engage in conflict to
improve their lotbecause of perceptions of unjust rela-
tive deprivation or actual need (e.g., Crosby, 1976; Walker
& Smith, 2002)the calculus of deterrence suggests that
they will hesitate to do so because the benefits of poten-
tially gaining those resources are likely to be outweighed
by the costs imposed by the high-power group in response
to the low-power groups acts of aggression.
However, this calculus can be altered (Allen &
Fordham, 2011; Arreguin-Toft, 2001). For example,
groups with especially strong organizational structures
may be capable of overcoming significant resource and
power disadvantages (e.g., Iannaccone & Berman, 2006).
One source of organizational strength may be religious
infusion, which might strengthen intragroup trust and
solidarity, enhance group coordination toward common
goals, increase willingness to sacrifice for the group, and
reduce member defection rates (e.g., Atran & Henrich,
2010; Ginges, Atran, Sachdeva, & Medin, 2011; Ginges,
Hansen, & Norenzayan, 2009). Thus, disadvantaged
groups that also have high levels of religious infusion
may be less deterred than disadvantaged groups with
low levels of religious infusion by the costs of conflict
200 Neuberg et al.
with high-power groups (Ginges & Atran, 2011; Toft,
2007) and hence more likely to engage in conflict.
We present findings from the Global Group Relations
Project, a data-gathering system we designed to test theo-
ries about different forms of conflict between existing
large groups. By taking advantage of research on accu-
racy in personality judgment (e.g., Funder & West, 1993)
and on expertise (e.g., Ericsson, Charness, Feltovich, &
Hoffman, 2006; Sternberg & Horvath, 1999), we asked
scholarly experts on societies in many locations around
the world to use their explicit and tacit knowledge to
provide parameter values for our studied variables. The
use of experts for such purposes has been an accepted
practice within political science (e.g., Cederman, Wimmer,
& Min, 2010) and often yields better predictions of behav-
ioral outcomes than does objective measurement (e.g.,
Bueno de Mesquita & Feng, 1997; Glasgow, Lewis, &
Neiman, 2012; Hooghe et al., 2010). Our survey covered
many sites and groups, including many groups not expe-
riencing conflict (to provide sufficient variability and ade-
quate comparisons), and quantitatively operationalized
variables consistently across all groups and sites in ways
designed a priori to capture our focal constructs.
Method
Site and group selection
One hundred study sites were selected at the country
level (see the Supplemental Material available online for
additional information on site and group selection and
on recruitment of expert respondents). Because severe
intergroup conflict is rare relative to the potential for it
(Fearon & Laitin, 1996; Themnr & Wallensteen, 2012),
we oversampled conflict by selecting 25 sites a priori
on the basis of either recent past or current conflict
between particular groups at those sites, which included,
for example, Algeria (Islamists and secularists), Cyprus
(Turks and Greeks), India (Muslims and Hindus),
Northern Ireland (Catholics and Protestants), Rwanda
(Hutu and Tutsi), and Sri Lanka (the state of Sri Lanka
and the Tamil ethnic minority).
The remaining 75 cases were sampled randomly, with-
out replacement, from a list of United Nations member
states. Countries were eligible for inclusion if their popu-
lation exceeded 0.01% of the world population (thereby
increasing our chances of finding relevant experts). In all,
the 100 sites spanned five continents, and the countries
included accounted for approximately 79% of the worlds
population.
Because we were interested in whether certain factors
would emerge as predictors of conflict across different
kinds of groups, we randomly assigned each of the 75
randomly selected sites to represent one of six common
forms of intergroup relationsethnic-ethnic, religious-
religious, secular-religious, state-state, state-ethnic minor-
ity, or state-religious minority. Relevant groups were
identified within each site on the basis of population
sizes. Two groups within each site were randomly
selected for study; for the state-state cases, multiple bor-
dering countries were identified, and one was randomly
selected for inclusion. Examples of the six forms include
ethnic-ethnic (e.g., the Gogo and Sukuma ethnic groups
in Tanzania), religious-religious (e.g., Christians and
Sunni Muslims in Pakistan), secular-religious (e.g., secu-
larists and Protestants in Argentina), state-state (e.g., Laos
and Thailand), state-ethnic minority (e.g., the state of
Moldova and Ukrainians), or state-religious minority
(e.g., the state of Malaysia and Buddhists); see Table S1
in the Supplemental Material for a list of the 100 sites and
groups.
Identification and recruitment of
expert respondents
We identified and recruited an international network of
English-speaking researchers with expertise in the
selected sites, as determined by scholarly visibility (e.g.,
published peer-reviewed articles about the site), and
each informant provided data for only one site and the
two groups therein. Expert informants responded by
completing an Internet survey, and 471 of them provided
data for at least one of the measured variables presented
here. Together, informants provided data for 97 of the
100 sites; the remaining 3 sites were dropped. Expert
informants reported having spent an average of 20.75
years studying their sites (range = 260 years), and 75%
self-identified as political scientists, anthropologists, his-
torians, sociologists, or economists.
Measures
From midsummer through late fall 2009, each expert
informant provided information about the two groups
within his or her assigned site on a wide range of social,
political, religious, and psychological variables, all of
which were presented in standardized form across sites
and groups. The survey instructions were intended to
focus respondents on providing information that would
be coherent within the site (i.e., would capture any exist-
ing differences between the two groups) and make sense
across sites (i.e., would take into consideration the
comparative global standings of given sites and groups
on each given variable). Informants were not asked for
their beliefs about how these variables were associated
with one another (i.e., this was not a survey of the
experts own hypotheses or theories), and they were not
informed of our hypotheses during recruitment or survey
Religion and Intergroup Conflict 201
instruction. Rather, for each site and for each of the
groups within it, informants made estimates on 9-point
scales for our variables of interest.
Religious infusion was operationalized at the group
levelthat is, informants provided scores for each group
within a siteand was calculated as the mean of three
survey items: To what extent, on average, is religious
ritual infused into the social/public life of [members of
the group]? To what extent do [members of the group]
use religious values, narratives, and reasoning in public
discourse? and To what extent, overall, does religion
play a dominant role in the everyday lives of [members of
the group]? (Group A: = .86; Group B: = .93).
Value incompatibility was operationalized at the site
level and assessed by a single item: To what extent are
the set of values held by [members of one group] and
[members of the other group] actually incompatible with
one another?
Resource-power differential was created at the site
level from responses to group-level items. To compute
this composite, we collected data from informants on the
extent to which each group actually confronted scarce
resources and political power by averaging responses to
two items: To what extent do [members of the group],
on average, actually lack access to sufficient food, water,
and/or land? and To what extent do [members of the
group], on average, actually lack access to political power
and educational and economic opportunities? Next,
within each site, a difference score was created such that
the group with the greater scarcity (i.e., relatively fewer
resources and less power) had a negative resource-
power-differential score; the group with less scarcity (i.e.,
relatively greater resources and power) received a posi-
tive resource-power-differential score. Thus, within each
site, the two groups had resource-power-differential
scores equal in magnitude but with opposite signs,
potentially ranging from 8 to +8. A resource-power-dif-
ferential score of zero meant that the two groups had
equal access to resources and held equal power.
The conflict measures were each operationalized by a
single item for each group on a scale ranging from 1
(very little/not at all) to 9 (to a great extent). Prejudice
was assessed by asking To what extent do [members of
one group], on average, hold negative prejudices against
[members of the other group]? Interpersonal discrimina-
tion was measured with the question To what extent do
[members of one group], on average, interpersonally dis-
criminate against [members of the other group] (e.g., by
avoiding cross-group friendships, romantic relationships,
work relationships)? We assessed symbolic aggression
by asking To what extent do [members of one group]
perpetrate symbolic acts of aggression against [members
of the other group] (e.g., by desecrating graves, bombing
symbolically important sites)? Individual violence was
assessed with the question To what extent do [members
of one group] perpetrate violent acts of physical aggres-
sion against [members of the other group], such as
assaults, murders, or rapes? Finally, to assess collective
violence, we asked To what extent do [members of one
group] perpetrate violent acts of physical aggression
against [members of the other group], such as riots or
police/military actions? We aggregated responses on all
variables across informants within each site; the median
number of informants per site was three or four, depend-
ing on the measure.
Results
We used structural equation modeling to create an inter-
changeable dyadic model that controlled for the depen-
dency between groups within each site (Kenny, 1996;
Olsen & Kenny, 2006).1 First, our three predictors
resource-power differential, value incompatibility, and
religious infusionwere not significantly associated with
one another (ps > .20), which is consistent with the view-
point that these are indeed conceptually independent
variables.
Second, there were independent linear effects of both
resource-power differential and value incompatibility on
many of the conflict measures, which replicates results
from past research in which different methods were used
(e.g., Biernat et al., 1996; Katz & Hass, 1988; Russett et al.,
2000; Schwartz et al., 1990) and thereby validates our
methodology (i.e., the use of expert informants): Groups
with power and resource advantages engaged in signifi-
cantly more conflict with their counterparts than did less
advantaged groups (prejudice: = 0.169, p < .001; inter-
personal discrimination: = 0.126, p < .01; collective vio-
lence: = 0.080, p < .05), and groups whose values were
more incompatible with one another exhibited more
prejudice ( = 0.394, p < . 01) and interpersonal discrimi-
nation ( = 0.367, p < .01).2
Religious infusion was also an independent predictor
of all forms of conflict; it significantly predicted increased
prejudice ( = 0.170, p < .05), interpersonal discrimina-
tion ( = 0.243, p < .01), individual violence ( = 0.143,
p < .05), and collective violence ( = 0.122, p < .05), and
it marginally predicted increased symbolic aggression
( = 0.097, p < .10). Qualifying all these main effects,
however, and supporting our hypotheses, results showed
that religious infusion interacted with both resource-
power differential and value-incompatibility to predict
several forms of conflict.
As depicted in Figure 1, the extent to which value
incompatibility predicted prejudice and interpersonal dis-
crimination was moderated by level of religious infusion
(prejudice: = 0.086, p = .049; interpersonal discrimina-
tion: = 0.095, p = .030). When religious infusion was
202 Neuberg et al.

a b
Low Religious Infusion
Medium Religious Infusion
High Religious Infusion

9 9

8 8

7 7

Interpersonal Discrimination
6 6
Prejudice

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Value Incompatibility Value Incompatibility

Fig. 1. Scatter plots showing mean ratings of (a) prejudice and (b) interpersonal discrimination as a function of the level of incompatibility of
each groups values with the counterpart groups values and the degree to which religion is infused throughout each group. For prejudice and
interpersonal discrimination, a rating of 1 indicated the lowest level, and 9 indicated the highest level. Lines for religious infusion were generated
from estimates from the structural equation models and are plotted at low (1 SD below the mean), medium (mean), and high (1 SD above the
mean), and the religious-infusion level of the counterpart group was held constant at the grand mean. Data points represent 194 groups nested
within 97 sites.

high, value incompatibility strongly predicted prejudice
and interpersonal discrimination; when religious infusion
was low, it did not.
Religious infusion also moderated the way in which
resource-power differential predicted symbolic aggres-
sion ( = 0.067, p = .022), individual violence ( =
0.081, p = .005), and collective violence ( = 0.105, p =
.001). Specifically, whereas disadvantaged groups with
low levels of religious infusion tended to avoid extreme
acts of aggression, disadvantaged groups for whom reli-
gion was a dominant aspect of everyday life exhibited
much less reticence (Fig. 2). That is, even if there was a
significant disadvantage in terms of resources and politi-
cal power, groups with high levels of religious infusion
were likely to be aggressive toward other groups. This
finding suggests that the actions of groups with high lev-
els of religious infusion may be relatively insensitive to
the tangible costs potentially imposed by more powerful
groups.
Discussion
The findings of the present study demonstrate several
ways in which religion may shape intergroup conflict.
Using a novel methodology to facilitate cross-societal
investigation, we found that religious infusion enhanced
the extent to which incompatible values predict inter-
group conflict: Among groups with high levels of reli-
gious infusion, those with value incompatibilities were
more likely to be prejudiced and to interpersonally dis-
criminate against one another. Religious infusion also
altered the manner in which relative group disadvantage
predicts conflict: Disadvantaged groups with low levels
of religious infusion tended to avoid acting aggressively
toward their advantaged counterparts, a strategy consis-
tent with a rational analysis of the deterrent capacity of
powerful groups to impose great costs on less powerful
groups. In contrast, disadvantaged groups with high lev-
els of religious infusion showed less evidence of being
deterred, tending instead to engage powerful groups
with symbolic, individual, and collective aggression.
Religious infusion appears to increase the willingness of
otherwise weak groups to endure costly confrontation.
These findings agree with those of research focusing
on individual-level mechanisms through which religion
may shape intergroup conflict (e.g., Ginges & Atran,
2011; Ginges et al., 2009; Sheikh, Ginges, Coman, &
Atran, 2012). For instance, to the extent that people view
Religion and Intergroup Conflict 203

a b
Low Religious Infusion
Medium Religious Infusion
High Religious Infusion
9 9

8 8

7 7
Symbolic Aggression

Individual Violence
6 6

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Resource-Power Differential Resource-Power Differential

c
9

7
Collective Violence

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Resource-Power Differential

Fig. 2. Scatter plots showing mean ratings of (a) symbolic aggression, (b) individual violence, and (c) collective violence as a function of the
extent to which each group faced resource and power advantage or disadvantage and the degree to which religion is infused throughout each
group. For symbolic aggression, individual violence, and collective violence, a rating of 1 indicated the lowest level, and 9 indicated the highest
level. Resource-power differential ranged from highly disadvantaged (6) to highly advantaged (+6). Lines for religious infusion were generated
from the structural equation models and are plotted at low (1 SD below the mean), medium (mean), and high (1 SD above the mean), and the
religious-infusion level of the partner group was held constant at the grand mean. Data points represent 190 groups nested within 95 sites.
204 Neuberg et al.
certain resources or territories as sacred (e.g., Israelis
and Palestinians views of Jerusalem), they are more
likely to be insulted by tangible offers for them (Ginges
et al., 2011). Such mechanisms likely complement (and
are complemented by) and reinforce (and are reinforced
by) the mechanisms giving rise to the large-scale reli-
gious-conflict phenomena assessed in our data.
Are other forms of infusion (e.g., infusions of political
ideologies or ethnic identities) associated with similar
outcomes? Such forms of infusion may also engender the
types of psychological and social processes discussed
earlier (e.g., norm salience, effective intragroup commu-
nication, trust and solidarity, group coordination toward
common goals, willingness to sacrifice for the group),
thereby facilitating a groups movement toward inter-
group conflict when faced with value incompatibilities
and resource disadvantages. Moreover, even nonreligious
groups can define places, objects, or values as sacred and
thus worth fighting for (Atran & Ginges, 2012; Hassner,
2009). That said, religions that have monitoring and
rewarding/punishing deities or that offer eternally
rewarding afterlives may be especially effective at garner-
ing commitment from and shaping the behaviors of
adherents ( Juergensmeyer, 2003; Toft, 2007). It may be,
then, that religious infusion is particularly able to reduce
the apparent costs of intergroup aggression for its group
members.
Our findings point to the value of assessing conflict
at multiple scales and intensity. Specifically, religious
infusion predicted multiple forms of conflict, but
each form of conflict was predicted by a different mecha-
nism. Whereas religious infusion interacted with value
incompatibility to predict levels of prejudice and inter-
personal discriminationbut not symbolic aggression,
individual violence, or collective violenceit interacted
with resource-power differential to predict levels of
symbolic aggression, individual violence, and collective
violencebut not prejudice or interpersonal discrimina-
tion. Different forms of conflict were predicted by differ-
ent patterns of variables, and this seems worthy of further
conceptual and empirical work.
Our sample included a diversity of group types (e.g.,
ethnic, religious, national), and the 194 groups differed
from one another in many other ways. One should not
be surprised, then, that our findings are of modest mag-
nitude. That we were able to identify clear patterns in the
face of such global diversity and variability suggests that
the processes underlying these patterns may be particu-
larly robust. Our findings also raise the possibility that
such processes may be part of a common, near-universal
suite of forces that form a foundation for much inter-
group conflict. However, we are not suggesting that
potentially unique, society-specific forces are unimport-
ant. Indeed, much may be learned from cases that depart
significantly from our models predictions. For instance,
not all groups with high levels of religious infusion and
low power engaged in the more aggressive forms of con-
flict. Identifying factors that distinguish these cases will
have significant implications for theory and may also
have important practical implications related to reducing
violent intergroup conflict.
This study also makes an important methodological
contribution to cross-societal research. If one is interested
in the behaviors of individuals, one can acquire partici-
pant samples from many societies and run them through
identical procedures. This approach can be quite expen-
sive and introduces a host of conceptual and practical
challenges associated with cross-cultural research. If one
is interested in comparing, contrasting, and explaining
more complex social and community-level processes in
which many people interact, these challenges multiply
and the costs become prohibitive. This explains why
scholars interested in empirically exploring such phe-
nomena so often cobble together existing data sets and
make conceptual and operationalization compromises in
the process. Our expert-informant method addresses
many of these challenges: It combines the strengths of
case-study investigations (providing a richness of expert
knowledge from which to glean data) and large-sample
quantitative analysis (providing many sites for study with
great variability on the constructs of interest). It provides
consistent operationalizations of theoretically driven con-
structs across many sites. Because the survey is intended
to be used by expert scholars, the constructs can
be operationalized with some degree of conceptual
nuance. In addition, the method is (relatively) financially
inexpensive.
That said, the method is not without its challenges. It
is possible that some of our experts lacked specific
knowledge regarding the variables of focus, which could
lead to missing data or decreased reliabilityboth of
which work against the ability to detect true associations
among variables. It is also possible that the expert
responders were biased by theory-based preconceptions,
although it is hard to conceive of how any such biases
could generate the interactive findings presented here.
Each expert provided responses for only 1 of 97 sites,
and they were not queried on their beliefs about how
variables relate to one another. Moreover, respondents
generally represented disciplines in which theory about
religion and conflict lacks consensus and for which our
interactive hypotheses (and findings) were novel. In all,
we believe the strengths of the expert-informant method
outweigh its weaknesses, especially when one is investi-
gating social-level hypotheses of the sort explored here.
Studying the relationship between religious infusion
and intergroup conflict in existing groups requires
correlational designs. Inferences of causality are thus
Religion and Intergroup Conflict 205
unwarranted, and we have taken care to avoid causal
language.3 Other designs might usefully complement our
cross-sectional design. Additional longitudinal data on
these sites would enable the exploration of the causal
direction of effects with additional confidence. Laboratory
simulations in which religious infusion, resource-power
differentials, and value incompatibility are experimen-
tally primed and manipulated in groups of religious peo-
ple could also serve as a useful complement to the
current approach.
Conclusion
We used an innovative methodology in which 194 groups
nested within 97 countries were sampled, and we learned
that religious infusion, interacting with value incompati-
bility and resource-power differential, predicted multiple
forms of large-scale intergroup conflict. Such findings
advance our theoretical understanding of complex con-
flict processes and thereby suggest strategies for reducing
the often staggering costs of intergroup conflict.
Author Contributions
S. L. Neuberg, C. M. Warner, G. Thomas, M. Winkelman, B. J.
Broome, J. Schober, R. E. Millsap, and T. J. Taylor conceptual-
ized the research. S. L. Neuberg, C. M. Warner, S. A. Mistler,
R. E. Millsap, G. Thomas, M. Winkelman, B. J. Broome, and
J. D. Johnson designed the methodology and created the expert
survey. S. L. Neuberg, C. M. Warner, S. A. Mistler, E. D. Hill,
J. D. Johnson, G. Thomas, M. Winkelman, and B. J. Broome
performed the research (i.e., selected sites, recruited respon-
dents, and programmed and implemented the Internet survey).
S. A. Mistler, A. Berlin, and G. Filip-Crawford analyzed the data
under the supervision of R. E. Millsap. S. L. Neuberg, C. M.
Warner, S. A. Mistler, A. Berlin, E. D. Hill, and G. Filip-Crawford
wrote the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of
the manuscript for submission.
Acknowledgments
We thank David Siroky, Timothy Byne, Douglas Kenrick,
Deborah Hall, and the participants of the Arizona State
University Social Psychology Research Institute and the Arizona
State University Center for Law and Global Affairs colloquium
for their helpful comments on this work. The data reported in
this article are available from S. L. Neuberg.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with
respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.
Funding
This research was supported by National Science Foundation
Grant 0729516 (to S. L. Neuberg, C. M. Warner, R. E. Millsap,
G. Thomas, M. Winkelman, B. J. Broome, T. J. Taylor,
J. Schober, and D. Schaefer), the Arizona State University Center
for the Study of Religion and Conflict, and the Arizona State
University Institute for Social Science Research.
Supplemental Material
Additional supporting information may be found at http://pss
.sagepub.com/content/by/supplemental-data
Notes
1. Because of missing data, the number of sites varied slightly
across analyses, with ns ranging from 94 to 97.
2. There were also quadratic effects of resource-power dif-
ferential: Greater prejudice (p < .001) and interpersonal dis-
crimination (p < .01) characterized groups that were especially
advantaged and groups that were especially disadvantaged.
These more nuanced findings corroborate work by Cederman,
Weidmann, and Gleditsch (2011), who used a different meth-
odology and data set to study ethno-nationalist civil conflicts.
Because these curvilinear effects were not moderated by reli-
gious infusion, however, we do not discuss them further.
3. It is instructive, however, that there are significant chal-
lenges for third-variable and reverse-causality alternatives to the
hypothesis that religious infusion plays a causal role in conflict.
To be compelling, third-variable alternatives must account not
only for the interactive patterns of religious infusion with value
incompatibility and with resource-power differential but also
for the different patterns of these interactions on the different
forms of conflict observed here. They must also account for
these findings at the same level of analysis; third variables that
can be viewed as mediators of the putative effects of religious
infusion do not qualify as alternatives. The reverse-causality
alternativethat conflict causes religious infusionneeds to
account not only for the observed interactive patterns of find-
ings but must also explain the origins of the conflict posited as
causal. Thus, although we do not claim causal effects of our
predictors, we note that the patterns of data are consistent with
such an interpretation, whereas alternative accounts struggle to
explain the nuanced patterns of observed findings.
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