67 Politics and the Life Sciences March 2001
ETHNIC IDENTITY
An Integrative Evolutionary Perspective on Ethnicity
Kevin MacDonald California State University—Long Beach, USA
Abstract. This paper integrates several different but
mutually consistent evolutionary approaches to
ethnicity: genetic similarity theory, social identity
theory, individualism/collectivism, an evolved racial/ethnic
human kinds module, and rational choice mechanisms
relying on domain general cognitive mechanisms.
These theories are consistent with each other, and together
they illustrate the interplay of evolved cognitive
and motivational systems with mechanisms of rational
choice that are able to choose adaptive strategies in uncertain,
novel environments.
Kevin MacDonald is Professor of Psychology at California State
University–Long Beach, Long Beach, CA 90840-0901, USA (email:
Kmacd@cox.net). His research has focused on developing
evolutionary perspectives in developmental psychology, certain
historical phenomena (e.g., the origins of monogamous marriage),
and ethnic relations (human group evolutionary strategies). After
receiving a Masters degree in evolutionary biology, he received
a Ph. D. in Biobehavioral Sciences, both at the University of
Connecticut. His dissertation focused on behavioral development
in wolves and was done under the direction of Benson E. Ginsburg.
He continued developmental research during a post-doctoral fellowship
at the University of Illinois under Ross D. Parke, performing
research on human parent-child play, particularly rough
and tumble play characteristic of fathers. His most recent book is
Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development, Second edition
(edited with R.L. Burgess), Sage, 2004.
This article develops a pluralistic account of theories
underlying ethnocentrism, ethnic identity, and relations
between ethnic groups. Ethnicity is not unique
in calling for theoretical pluralism. Pluralism of mechanisms
devoted to solving the same adaptive problem is common,
especially, I suggest, for systems designed to solve
problems with very high potential costs or benefits for the
organism. For example, an adequate theory of aggression
must include universal adaptations triggered in specific
contexts (e.g., sexual jealousy triggered by signs of infidelity;
threat to an ingroup; certain types of aversive stimulation—
Berkowitz, 1982; Buss, 1999). However, we also
need theories that can account for sex differences, individual
differences, and group differences in aggression. These
imply the importance of genetic and environmental influences
on a variety of evolved systems, including temperament/
personality differences in behavioral approach
systems associated with aggression (sensation seeking,
impulsivity, and social dominance). Also implicated are
differences in emotionality, which subsumes variation in
the tendency to exhibit anger, a primary emotion of aggression,
and sociopathy, which includes variation in the
opposing emotions of sympathy, empathy, and love
(MacDonald, 1995). Finally, learning mechanisms, such as
being exposed to successful or unsuccessful models and
negative reinforcement, and cognitive mechanisms (e.g.,
tendencies to over-attribute hostile intent) have also been
implicated in aggression (Coie and Dodge, 1998). A similar
situation obtains with the fear system, where there are
sex-differentiated personality systems (the behavioral inhibition
system, emotionality), domain-specific modules
designed to respond to evolutionarily significant sources
of fear (snakes, spiders), domain-general learning systems
(classical conditioning) able to respond to novel sources of
fear, and general intelligence able to develop elaborate plans
to escape sources of fear (Gray and McNaughton, 2000;
LeDoux, 1996; MacDonald and Chiappe, 2002; …hmann
and Mineka, 2001).
The following discusses five systems underlying the
phenomenon of ethnic identity: genetic similarity theory, a
racial/ethnic human kinds module, social identity mecha68
Politics and the Life Sciences March 2001
Ethnic Identity
nisms, individualism/collectivism, and domain-general
problem solving mechanisms.
Genetic Similarity Theory (GST)
Genetic similarity theory extends beyond the mechanisms
of kin-based inclusive fitness by proposing mechanisms
that assess phenotypic similarity as a marker for genetic
similarity (Rushton, 1989). These proposed mechanisms
promote positive attitudes, greater cooperation, and a
lower threshold for altruism for similar others. The data
compiled by Rushton (1989, 1999) demonstrate that
people not only assort positively for a wide variety of
traits, but they are more likely to do so on traits that are
relatively highly heritable. GST is also highly compatible
with substantial evidence for direct kin recognition mechanisms
in a variety of animals and plants (Pfennig and
Sherman, 1995; Rushton, 1989). GST is the most plausible
explanation for three critical empirical findings: assortative
mating, the very powerful effect of similarity in
psychological research, and the fact that people tend to
assort with others on more heritable traits.
GST has important implications for theories of ethnocentrism.
It implies that the continuum from phenotypic
and genetic similarity to phenotypic and genetic dissimilarity
also acts as an affective continuum, with liking,
friendship, marriage, and alliance formation being facilitated
by greater phenotypic and genetic similarity. This
in turn suggests a genetic basis for xenophobia independent
of the theory of groups—that the liking and disliking
of others facilitated by this system is independent of
whether the other is a member of a socially designated
(culturally constructed) ingroup or outgroup.
It is important to qualify these findings by noting that
the relationship between similarity and heritability occurs
within category—e.g., within the area of cognitive abilities,
there is greater similarity among spouses and friends
for general intelligence (h=.8) than for specific cognitive
abilities (h=.5). These data also support the importance
of resource reciprocity in relationships of marriage and
close friendship, since, for example, spouses and best
friends are more similar in age, attitudes, and religion than
they are on physical characteristics, even though the latter
are more heritable. (Age isn’t heritable at all.) Others
who are similar in these ways presumably provide self
with more psychological rewards; for example, similar
interests and attitudes form the basis of mutual attraction,
and similar personality traits—such as sensation seeking—
promote common interests. A common finding in the developmental
literature is that friends establish common
ground. Children with vastly different interests and attitudes
really have nothing to be friends about. Friendship,
marriage, and other voluntary alliances are fundamentally
relationships of reciprocity of valued resources
(MacDonald, 1996).
There are therefore two complementary evolutionary
theories of similarity in human relationships—one based
on attraction to genetic commonality in others (e.g.,
assortatively marrying for intelligence and a variety of other
genetically influenced traits) and one based on reciprocity
in the resource value of others (e.g., a beautiful, young
woman marrying a wealthy older man from a different ethnic
group—Lusk, MacDonald, and Newman, 1998).
Because the similarity-detecting mechanisms implied by
GST assess low levels of genetic relatedness, they would
not be expected to produce detectable levels of providing
unreciprocated resources to others (altruism), but to affect
the cost/benefit structure of self-interested behavior. There
is no psychological evidence that relative liking in relationships
of friendship, marriage, and alliances typically
involves this sort of altruism. Indeed, DeBruine (2002)
found that subjects showed greater trust of others in a twoperson
trust game if the other person’s face resembled their
own. However, despite the greater trust in a phenotypically
similar other, phenotypic similarity had no effect on selfish
betrayals of the partner’s trust in a situation where the
partner could not retaliate.
Relationships of marriage, friendship, and ethnic group
affiliation fundamentally involve reciprocity, and self-interest
is an obvious component of all of these relationships:
Assortative mating increases relatedness to children, so that
one receives a greater genetic payoff for the same parenting
effort. Successful alliances and successful friendships have
a greater payoff to self if genetically similar others succeed
when you succeed. Successful alliances of any kind
with genetically similar others have a lower threshold for
trust (DeBruine, 2002) and a higher threshold for defection:
It remains in one’s self-interest to persevere in maintaining
the alliance in the face of other self-interested
opportunities. These considerations fit well with views that
ethnic groups represent diluted reservoirs of genetic selfinterest
(Johnson, 1997; Salter, 2002; van den Berghe,
1999).
Ethnic Groups Processed by a “Human Kinds”
Module
Gil-White (2001) argues that the human brain is biased toward
viewing ethnic and racial groups as biological kinds
because they superficially resemble animal species. This
tendency is an evolutionary accident—an exaptation: There
was no natural selection for viewing ethnic groups or races
as biological kinds, but the brain is fooled into supposing
that different ethnic groups and races are biological kinds
because they resemble natural kinds in several ways, including
normative endogamy, descent-based membership,
and the existence of culturally created phenotypic markers
(scarification, forms of dress) that make different ethnic
groups appear to be of a different kind. Ethnic groups become
a useful essentialist category supporting valid infer69
Politics and the Life Sciences March 2001
Ethnic Identity
ences not because of any biological reality to ethnicity but
because the cultural markers peculiar to different ethnic
groups lower the cost of interactions within the group.
Hirschfeld (1994, 1996) provides several arguments
against such analogical transfer models in which human social
categories are analogized from na•ve biological categories
(see also commentary in Gil-White, 2001). Hirschfeld
notes that developmental data indicate that knowledge of race
does not develop in coordination with knowledge of animal
species as predicted by the analogical transfer model.
Hirschfeld argues for a domain-specific module specific to
human social kinds. Children have a natural curiosity about
groups that is “shaped by a set of abstract principles that
guide the child’s attention toward information relevant to
discovering the sorts of intrinsicalities and naturally grounded
commonalities that are entrenched in his or her particular
cultural environment” (1996:193). Hirschfeld thus posits an
interaction between an innate domain-specific module of
intrinsic human kinds combined with cultural input that race
is the type of human kind that is intrinsic—that it is inherited
and highly relevant to identity, more so even than other
types of surface physical characteristics like muscularity or
occupation. People cannot voluntarily join or leave such a
social category. Even 4-year-old children view racial categories
as essentialized and natural: “Young children’s thinking
about race encompasses the defining principles of theorylike
conceptual systems, namely an ontology, domain-specific
causality, and differentiation of concepts” (1996:88).
“But racial kinds are not natural kinds (at least, not as they
have classically been conceived), and they certainly are not
kinds whose existence is triggered by external reality”
(1996:197).
A third possibility is that we have a human kinds module
designed not simply to categorize people in essentialist terms
but to specifically categorize people in different racial/ethnic
groups in an essentialist manner—as highly relevant to
identity and not changeable by the person. Hirschfeld’s results
are consistent with such a model because they show
that even at very early ages children view race in more essentialist
terms than either occupation or body build, although
of course they are also consistent with his view that information
about race is provided by the culture.
It is noteworthy that part of Mongol folk psychology is
that people from other nearby ethnic groups look different
and would continue to look different even if they had
adopted the culture of another group. Thus, Gil-White’s
subjects suppose that a Kazakh child adopted into a Mongol
family would “not look or behave anything like a Mongol”
(Gil-White, 2001:523) even though being reared in a
Mongol culture. They suppose that there is something “inside”
that makes them different from outgroups despite
enculturation in the outgroup.
Gil-White’s subjects may be correct that at least some
of the physical and even behavioral differences between
ethnic groups (e.g., differences in size, as between pygmies
and non-pygmies, or a reputation for fierceness or
intelligence) would occur even if individuals from those
groups were reared in another culture. Their essentializing
tendencies may reflect an adaptation sensitive to real genetically
influenced differences between the groups—an
adaptive response to recurrent encounters with other human
groups that differed in observable, genetically influenced
traits. From this perspective, the process of
essentializing groups that differ only culturally from one’s
own group is a misfiring of an adaptive mechanism designed
to respond to real genetic differences between
groups.
The argument for an adaptation specific to ethnic
outgroups is strengthened by evidence showing information
encapsulation (restriction to particular types of input),
rapid, unconscious processing, and automaticity—characteristics
notably absent from Gil-White’s analysis (Rothbart
and Taylor, 2001). Social psychology experiments show
that subjects respond differently to faces of racial ingroups
and outgroups (Fiske, 1998). For example, subjects are
better able to recall the faces of racial ingroup members
(Platz and Hosch, 1988; Bothwell, Brigham, and Malpass,
1989). Hart et al. (2000) found that both Blacks and Whites
showed differential amygdala responses to photographs of
racial ingroup and outgroup members as assessed by Functional
Magnetic Resonance Imaging recordings. The
amygdala is known to respond subconsciously to facial
expressions of fear and evolutionarily prepared sources of
fear such as snakes and spiders (Le Doux, 1996; …hmann
and Mineka, 2001; Whalen et al., 1998). The greater
amygdala activation to outgroup faces noted by Hart et al.
(2000) occurred during later stimulus presentations; subjects
habituated to repeated presentations of ingroup faces
but not to outgroup faces. These findings are consistent with
Whalen’s (1998) proposal that the amygdala acts as a vigilance
system that monitors the environment for potentially
threatening stimuli and ceases responding when the stimulus
is no longer viewed as threatening.
It is noteworthy that these results are specific to facial
features rather than the culturally-imposed ingroup/outgroup
markers emphasized by Gil-White (2001). As noted above,
DeBruine (2002) found that subjects showed greater trust of
others in a two-person trust game if the other person’s face
resembled their own. Similarly, Heschl (1993) found that
politicians in the Soviet Union were more likely to support
the party leader if they showed facial resemblance to that
leader. These results suggest that people are sensitive to facial
similarity as a marker for genetic similarity.
Implicit, unconscious, and rapid processing are hallmarks
of evolved cognitive modules (Tooby and Cosmides,
1992). Hart et al.’s subjects did not report any conscious
differences in emotional reaction to racial ingroups or
outgroups. Moreover, subjects are quicker to classify pictures
of racial outgroup members than ingroup members
(Levin, 1996; Valentine and Endo, 1992).
70 Politics and the Life Sciences March 2001
Ethnic Identity
Nevertheless, in the absence of similar data from crosscultural
samples and from more closely related but different
looking ethnic groups, it is premature to conclude that
there is an evolved, domain specific module designed to
categorize people in different racial/ethnic groups in an essentialist
manner. Hart et al.’s (2000) results could also be
explained by lower levels of experience with the racial
outgroup, since less experience with a stimulus would be
expected to result in greater ambiguity and therefore increased
monitoring by the amygdala vigilance system (see Whalen,
1998). Nor is this system encapsulated, since conscious beliefs
and attitudes also influence responses to racial and ethnic
outgroups (e.g., van den Berghe, 1981). Similarly, the
amygdala is known to react to evolutionarily significant
sources of fear in a modular, domain specific manner, but is
also known to respond to experiential influences, as in the
case of learned fears (LeDoux, 1996; …hmann and Mineka,
2001).
Arguments that humans possess a module for race and
ethnicity as intrinsic natural kinds based solely on genetically
influenced physical features require that human groups
had repeated interaction with other races or ethnic groups
differing in their genetically influenced physical features in
the EEA. Such arguments also require that there be valid
inferences about races or ethnic groups that could have selected
for an essentialist architecture specific to race or
ethnicity as a genetically influenced category, and that inferences
about ethnic groups or races had fitness consequences
in the EEA (see Barrett, 2001:12).
Regarding the first point, Harpending (2002) notes that
long distance migrations have easily occurred on foot and
over several generations, bringing people who look different
for genetic reasons into contact with each other. Examples
include the Bantu in South Africa living close to the Khoisans,
or the pygmies living close to non-pygmies. The various
groups in Rwanda and Burundi look quite different and came
into contact with each other on foot. Harpending notes that
it is “very likely” that such encounters between peoples who
look different for genetic reasons have been common for the
last 40,000 years of human history; the view that humans
were mostly sessile and living at a static carrying capacity is
contradicted by history and by archaeology. Harpending
points instead to “starbursts of population expansion.” For
example, the Inuits settled in the arctic and exterminated the
Dorsets within a few hundred years; the Bantu expansion
into central and southern Africa happened in a millennium
or less, prior to which Africa was mostly the yellow (i.e.,
Khoisan) continent, not the black continent. Other examples
include the Han expansion in China, the Numic expansion
in northern Africa, the Zulu expansion in southern Africa
during the last few centuries, and the present day expansion
of the Yanomamo in South America. There has also been a
long history of invasions of Europe from the east. “In the
starburst world people would have had plenty of contact with
very different looking people” (Harpending, 2002). Finally,
there was considerable overlap among various Homo species
during human evolution, as for Neanderthals and modern
humans (e.g., Noble and Davidson, 1996)
Would such a mechanism have fitness consequences in
the EEA? Population genetic studies show measurable genetic
distance even between closely related groups, as between
English and Danes (e.g., Salter, 2002). Individuals
have a greater genetic interest (inclusive fitness) in their
tribal and ethnic groups than outgroups, and would benefit
by mechanisms that fostered discrimination between
ingroups and outgroups—the same evolutionary logic underlying
social identity theory (see below) or, indeed, Gil-
White’s exaptation model.
A putative evolved human kinds module would be expected
to exacerbate distrust and animosity between groups,
because outgroups are viewed as composed of people who
are fundamentally and intrinsically different (Hogg and
Abrams, 1987). Social identity research has indicated that
social mobility (i.e., the extent to which group boundaries
are permeable) influences ingroup/outgroup attitudes. The
perception of permeability reduces perceptions of conflict
of interest and reduces the ability of the other group to act
in a collective manner, while perceptions of impermeability
lead to group strategies involving competition with the
other group and negative evaluations of the outgroup. Ethnic
groups “tie their differences to affiliations that are putatively
ascriptive and therefore difficult or impossible to
change” (Horowitz, 1985:147). People are inclined to view
those in outgroups as “of a different kind” and therefore
not potential members of one’s one group, leading to greater
conflict between groups.
Social Identity Theory
Theories based on phenotypic similarity, such as genetic
similarity theory, do not address the crucial importance of
cultural manipulation of segregative mechanisms as a fundamental
characteristic of ethnocentric groups. It is common
for groups to develop segregative cultural practices
with the result that ingroup membership becomes of critical
importance for all relationships. For example, there are
large cultural barriers between Anabaptist groups (Amish
and Hutterites) and the surrounding society, including
modes of dressing, familiarity with the wider culture of the
mass media, religious beliefs, and associational patterns
(MacDonald, 1994/2002). As a result, phenotypic and genetic
similarity between individual Anabaptists and non-
Anabaptists on a wide range of traits was effectively
precluded as a mechanism for promoting friendship, business
alliances, and marriage with outsiders, and there was
a corresponding hypertrophy of the importance of religious/
ethnic affiliation (i.e., group membership) as a criterion of
assortment.
Moreover, generalized negative attitudes toward dissimilar
others seem insufficient to account for hostility directed
71 Politics and the Life Sciences March 2001
Ethnic Identity
against individuals because of their group membership. The
mechanisms implied by GST or proposed evolved mechanisms
of xenophobia postulate that each individual assesses
others on a continuum ranging from very similar to very
dissimilar. However, an important feature of ethnic competition
is that there are discontinuities created by ethnic
separatism and the consequent hypertrophy of religious/
ethnic (i.e., group) status as a criterion of similarity. Fundamentally,
what is needed is a theoretical perspective in
which group membership per se (rather than other phenotypic
characteristics of the individual) is of decisive importance
in producing animosity between groups.
Social identity theory offers a promising evolutionary
theory of groups (see also MacDonald, 1998; Tullberg and
Tullberg, 1997; van der Dennen, 1999). An early form of
social identity theory was stated by William Graham
Sumner (1906:13), who concluded that
Loyalty to the group, sacrifice for it, hatred and
contempt for outsiders, brotherhood within,
warlikeness without—all grow together, common
products of the same situation. It is sanctified by
connection with religion. Men of an others-group
are outsiders with whose ancestors the ancestors
of the we-group waged war. . . . Each group nourishes
its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior,
exalts its own divinities, and looks with
contempt on outsiders. Each group thinks its own
folkways the only right ones, and if it observes that
other groups have other folkways, these excite its
scorn.
The classic study of Sherif et al. (1961) found that when
randomly chosen groups of boys engaged in between-group
competition, group membership became an important aspect
of personal identity despite the lack of systematic genetic
or phenotypic differences between the groups. The
groups developed negative stereotypes of each other and
were transformed into groups of “wicked, disturbed, and
vicious” children (Sherif, 1966:85). Fear and dislike of
strangers are easily developed, and group differences, especially
when marked by obvious physical differences such
as skin color, are quickly registered in consciousness (Hebb
and Thompson, 1964). Levine and Campbell (1972) evaluated
theories and anthropological evidence related to the
“ethnocentric syndrome” of positive perceptions and behavior
toward ingroups and negative perceptions and behavior
toward outgroups.
Social identity research shows that people are highly
prone to identifying themselves with groups. There is a tendency
to conceptualize both ingroups and especially
outgroups as more homogeneous than they really are. The
stereotypic behavior and attitudes of the ingroup are positively
valued, while outgroup behavior and attitudes are
negatively valued (Brewer and Brown, 1998; Fiske, 1998;
Abrams and Hogg, 1990; Hogg and Abrams, 1987). While
negative attitudes and behavior toward outgroup members
are muted by normative prohibitions against harming
outgroup members (Hewstone, Rubin, and Willis, 2002),
such norms are not in place in many societies, so that “in
one country after another, other ethnic groups are described
in unflattering or disparaging terms” (Horowitz, 1985:7).
The result of these categorization processes is behavior
that involves discrimination in favor of the ingroup; beliefs
in the superiority of the ingroup and inferiority of the
outgroup; and positive affective preference for the ingroup
and negative affect directed toward the outgroup. These
tendencies toward ingroup cohesiveness and devaluation
of the outgroup are exacerbated by real conflicts of interest
between groups (see also Triandis, 1990:96).
Nevertheless, ingroup favoritism and discrimination
against outgroups occurs even in so-called minimal group
experiments, i.e., experiments where groups are constructed
with no conflicts of interest, or indeed any social interaction
at all. Even when the experimental subjects are aware
that the groups are composed randomly, subjects attempt
to maximize the difference between the ingroup and the
outgroup, even when such a strategy means they would not
maximize their own group’s rewards. The important goal
seems to be to outcompete the other group. Rather than
dismiss the minimal group experiments as not meaningful
because of the highly artificial situation, these studies attest
to the power of “groupness” in the human mind—the
tendency for even the most randomly constructed groups
to elicit discrimination against outgroups.
The empirical results of social identity research are
highly compatible with supposing that social identity processes
are a psychological adaptation designed for between-
group competition. Current evidence indicates that
the minimal group findings can be generalized across subjects
of different ages, nationalities, social classes, and a
wide range of dependent variables (Bourhis, 1994). Anthropological
evidence indicates the universality of the
tendency to view one’s own group as superior (Vine,
1987). The tendency for bias in favor of ingroups arises
automatically and implicitly (i.e., without conscious
awareness) even in minimal group experiments (Otten and
Wentura, 1999); although these qualities may arise for
other reasons, automaticity and implicit, unconscious processing
are characteristic of evolved domain-specific
modules designed as adaptations to recurrent problems in
the EEA (Tooby and Cosmides, 1992). Moreover, social
identity processes occur very early in life, prior to explicit
knowledge about the outgroup. They also occur
among some animal species. Russell (1993:111) notes that
“chimpanzees, like humans, divide the world into ‘us’
versus ‘them,’” and van der Dennen (1991:237) proposes,
on the basis of his review of the literature on human and
animal conflict, that advanced species have “extra-strong
group delimitations” based on emotional mechanisms.
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Ethnic Identity
Further indicating adaptive design of cognitive mechanisms
related to group interactions, Rutherford et al. (1997)
found that people weigh individual/group cost/benefit payoffs
in an adaptive manner that is inconsistent with rational
choice theory but which would be highly adaptive in a
context of competing groups. Again, the evidence indicates
that perceptions of ingroups and outgroups are the result of
adaptive design and that between-group competition is a
reality of the human environment of evolutionary
adaptedness.
The powerful emotional components of social identity
processes are very difficult to explain except as an aspect of
the evolved machinery of the human mind. The ingroup develops
a positive distinctness, a positive social identity, and
increased self-esteem as a result of this process (Aberson,
Healy, and Romero, 2000; Rubin and Hewstone, 1998).
Within the group there is a great deal of cohesiveness, positive
emotional regard, and camaraderie, while relationships
outside the group can be hostile and distrustful. As Hogg
and Abrams (1987:73) note, the emotional consequences of
ingroup identification cannot be explained in terms of purely
cognitive processes, and a learning theory seems hopelessly
ad hoc and gratuitous. The tendencies for humans to place
themselves in social categories and for these categories to
assume powerful emotional and evaluative overtones (involving
guilt, empathy, self-esteem, relief at securing a group
identity, and distress at losing it) are the best candidates for
the biological underpinnings of social identity processes.
Clearly, categorization of humans into groups is far more
than simply an example of the general process of human
categorization.
Social identity processes also are exacerbated in times of
resource competition or other perceived sources of threat
(e.g., Hogg and Abrams, 1987; Hewstone, Rubin and Willis,
2002), suggesting that this is an adaptation for between-group
conflict. A common source of ethnic conflict is fear of being
dominated by ethnic strangers (Horowitz, 1985:188). Keeley
(1996:129, 138-41) has found that among pre-state societies,
“hard times” and expanding populations are often associated
with warfare. As emphasized by Alexander (1979) and
Johnson (1995), external threat tends to reduce internal divisions
and maximize perceptions of common interest among
ingroup members. An evolutionary interpretation of these
findings is also supported by results indicating that social
identity processes occur among advanced animal species,
such as chimpanzees (van den Dennen, 1991). The powerful
emotional components of social identity processes are very
difficult to explain except as an aspect of the evolved machinery
of the human mind. The tendencies for humans to
place themselves in social categories and for these categories
to assume powerful emotional and evaluative overtones
(involving guilt, empathy, self-esteem, relief at securing a
group identity, and distress at losing it) are the best candidates
for the biological underpinnings of participation in
highly cohesive collectivist groups.
The results of social identity theory support the claim that
people’s categorization of sets of individuals into groups involves
an adaptive distortion of reality in the form of a loss
of detail. The perception of the social world as sharply dichotomized
between ingroup and outgroup results in some
loss of information. People in ingroups are relatively likely
to fail to attend to individual differences within groups, with
the result that both ingroup members and especially outgroup
members become characterized by the stereotypical traits of
their group—positively evaluated traits for members of the
ingroup, negatively evaluated traits for members of the
outgroup (Hogg and Abrams, 1987). This loss of detail therefore
results in sharpening group boundaries, intensifying
positive feelings about the ingroup and negative feelings
about the outgroup, and discriminating in favor of the ingroup
and against the outgroup. Groups also invent or at least choose
attributes on which they differ from other groups in order to
develop a positive self-image: “If a group suffers by invidious
comparison along the dimension of achievement motivation,
it may nonetheless have a special connection with
the land that furnishes an alternative basis for relative group
evaluation” (Horowitz, 1985:186).
The empirical data derived from social identity theory
indicate that perceptions of ingroups and outgroups have
been the focus of natural selection, i.e., the mechanism
evolved because humans were recurrently exposed to situations
in which perceptions of ingroups and outgroups as
groups rather than concatenations of individuals were adaptive.
Social identity research indicates that people in threatened
groups develop a psychological sense of shared fate
(Rabbie and Wilkins, 1971). The fact that social identity
mechanisms appear to be highly sensitive to the presence
of external threat to the group is compatible with supposing
that people continue to track individual self-interest; in
the absence of threat, people are more individualistic, and
in times of threat, group and individual interests increasingly
coincide and group members increasingly have a
shared fate.
Shared fate in human groups is likely to occur during
situations such as military conflicts and other examples of
intense between-group competition in which defection is
not individually advantageous, or is not an option at all.
Warfare is the most likely candidate to meet these conditions.
Warfare appears to have been a recurrent phenomenon
among pre-state societies. Surveys indicate over 90%
of societies engage in warfare, the great majority engaging
in military activities at least once per year (Keeley, 1996:27-
32). Moreover, “whenever modern humans appear on the
scene, definitive evidence of homicidal violence becomes
more common, given a sufficient number of burials”
(Keeley, 1996:37). Because of its frequency and the seriousness
of its consequences, primitive warfare was more
deadly than civilized warfare. Most adult males in primitive
and pre-historic societies engaged in warfare and “saw
combat repeatedly in a lifetime” (Keeley, 1996:174).
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Ethnic Identity
Shared fate would be likely in situations where potential
defectors were summarily executed or severely punished
by the ingroup, or in situations were survivors were
summarily executed by a conquering outgroup or lost access
to women and other resources. There is little evidence
for high levels of discipline and coercion in pre-state warfare,
although it occurred at least in some cases (Turney-
High, 1971). Nevertheless, cowards were often shamed and
courage was a highly valued trait (Keeley, 1996:42-44;
Turney-High, 1971), so that defection from the fighting
group did indeed have costs as a result of social pressure.
More important perhaps is that the slaughtering of conquered
peoples, especially males, has been a persistent feature
of warfare. In their rise to power, the Aztecs probably
“slaughtered those who opposed them, as all conquerors
have always done” (Keegan (1993:114). In pre-state warfare,
while women were often taken as prizes of warfare,
immediate death was often the fate of women and children
and the certain fate of adult male prisoners: “Armed or unarmed,
adult males were killed without hesitation in battles,
raids, or the routs following battles in the great majority of
primitive societies. Surrender was not a practical option
for adult tribesmen because survival after capture was unthinkable”
(Keeley, 1996:84).
There is reason to suppose, therefore, that situations of
intense between-group conflict have recurrently given rise
to shared-fate situations. Moreover, Boehm (1997) shows
that human hunter-gatherer groups are characterized by an
“egalitarian ethic” for an evolutionarily significant period—
long enough to have influenced both genetic and cultural
evolution. The egalitarian ethic implies that meat and other
important resources are shared among the entire group, the
power of leaders is circumscribed, free-riders are punished,
and virtually all important decisions are made by a consensus
process. The egalitarian ethic thus makes it difficult for
individuals to increase their fitness at the expense of other
individuals in the same group, resulting in relative behavioral
uniformity and relatively weak selection pressures
within groups. Mild forms of social control, such as gossip
and withholding social benefits, are usually sufficient to
control would-be dominators, but more extreme measures,
such as ostracism and execution, are recorded in the ethnographic
literature. By controlling behavioral differences
within groups and increasing behavioral differences between
groups, Boehm argues that the egalitarian ethic
shifted the balance between levels of selection and made
selection between groups an important force in human evolution
(see also below).
Individual and Group Differences in
Individualism/Collectivism
The theory of individualism/collectivism developed by
Harry Triandis (1990, 1995) emphasizes individual differences
and cross-cultural differences in many of the same
tendencies discussed by social identity theory. The theory
of individualism/collectivism describes cross-cultural differences
in the extent to which emphasis is placed on the
goals and needs of the ingroup rather than on individual
rights and interests. For individuals highly predisposed to
collectivism, ingroup norms and the duty to cooperate and
subordinate individual goals to the needs of the group are
paramount. Collectivist cultures are characterized by social
embeddedness in a network of extended kinship relationships.
Such cultures develop an “unquestioned
attachment” to the ingroup, including “the perception that
ingroup norms are universally valid (a form of ethnocentrism),
automatic obedience to ingroup authorities [i.e.,
authoritarianism], and willingness to fight and die for the
ingroup. These characteristics are usually associated with
distrust of and unwillingness to cooperate with outgroups”
(Triandis, 1990:55); collectivist cultures are more prone to
ingroup bias (Heine and Lehman, 1997; Triandis and
Trafimow, 2001). Like social identity processes, tendencies
toward collectivism are exacerbated in times of external
threat, again suggesting that the tendency toward
collectivism is a facultative response that evolved as a
mechanism of between-group conflict.
If there are important individual differences in psychological
mechanisms related to developing a sense of shared
fate, it would not be surprising to find that some individuals
are extremely prone to a sense of shared fate, to the
point that defecting from the group is not a psychologically
available option. There are, in fact, examples of such
people. Especially striking has been the phenomenon of
individuals who readily undergo martyrdom or mass suicide
rather than abandon the group. We see examples periodically
in modern times, and there are many historical
examples, ranging from Christian martyrs in ancient times
to a great many instances of Jewish martyrdom over a twothousand-
year period. Persecution of highly collectivist
groups does not typically result in defections, but rather an
increase in collectivist tendencies. For example, Peter
(1987) finds that the high point of Hutterite collectivism
was during the seventeenth-century religious persecutions.
“No other nation can be shown to have fought so often in
defence of its own way of life, and the readiness of Jews to
die for their cause is proved by example after example”
(Sanders, 1992:239).
Examples of martyrdom are theoretically important because
it is very difficult to suppose that such people have
an algorithm that calculates individual fitness payoffs by
balancing the tendency to desert the group with anticipated
benefits of continued group membership. The obvious interpretation
of such a phenomenon is that these people are
obligated to remain in the group no matter what—even to
the point of being martyred. Such examples suggest that
there are no conceivable circumstances that would cause
such people to abandon the group, go their own way, and
become assimilated to the outgroup.
74 Politics and the Life Sciences March 2001
Ethnic Identity
I do not suppose that such an extreme level of self-sacrifice
is a pan-human psychological adaptation. As is the case
for many other psychological adaptations, there are important
individual differences (MacDonald, 1991, 1995; Wilson,
1994). Conceptually, this range of individual differences
in personality systems and mechanisms related to social identity
and individualism/collectivism may be seen as representing
a continuous distribution of phenotypes that matches
a continuous distribution of viable strategies. At one extreme
end of this variation, it appears that there are a significant
number of humans who are so highly prone to developing a
sense of shared fate that they do not calculate individual payoffs
of group membership and readily suffer martyrdom
rather than defect from the group.
It should also be noted that the existence of significant
numbers of people for whom desertion of the group is not a
psychologically available option shows that between-group
selection must be presumed to have occurred among humans.
However, the existence of such people is not a necessary
condition for groups being a vehicle of selection. Even if all
humans were entirely opportunistic and fickle in their group
affiliations, so that group membership was always contingent
on individual self-interest, groups as a vehicle of selection
would still be required in order to understand the behavior
of coordinated groups (Wilson and Sober, 1998).
It is likely that enduring, bounded, discrete gatherings of
people have been a common feature of the social environment
for many humans (Levine and Campbell, 1972). The
phenomenon is important because it would imply that a great
many humans have in fact lived in group-structured populations
where the status of ingroup and outgroup was highly
salient psychologically (see Palmer, Fredrickson, and Tilley,
1997 for a contrary perspective). Examples include Gypsies,
Anabaptist religious groups (Amish, Hutterites), the seventeenth-
century Calvinists and Puritans, and overseas Chinese
groups occurring in several parts of the world (see
MacDonald, 1994/2002).
Some culture groups are notably more collectivist than
others. The Middle Old World cultural area, including cultures
from China through North Africa, tends toward collectivism,
with extended kinship groups, strongly patricentric
social organization, endogamous marriage, ethnocentrism,
and xenophobia (Burton et al., 1996). Society is centered
around male-dominated groups that functioned as military
units to protect herds, suggesting that between-group conflict
is an important component of their evolutionary history.
There is a great deal of pressure to form larger groups in
order to increase military strength, and this is done partly by
acquiring extra women through bridewealth.
Middle Eastern societies—also part of the Middle Old
World culture area—are characterized by anthropologists
as “segmentary societies” organized into relatively impermeable
groups (e.g., Coon, 1958, 153; Eickelman,
1981:157-74). Individuals in these societies have a strong
sense of group identity and group boundaries, often accompanied
by external markers—such as hair style or clothing—
and different groups settle in different areas, where
they retain their homogeneity alongside likewise homogeneous
groups. Consider Carlton Coon’s (1958) description
of Middle Eastern society:
There the ideal was to emphasize not the uniformity
of the citizens of a country as a whole but
auniformity within each special segment, and the
greatest possible contrast between segments. The
members of each ethnic unit feel the need to identify
themselves by some configuration of symbols.
If by virtue of their history they possess some racial
peculiarity, this they will enhance by special
haircuts and the like; in any case they will wear
distinctive garments and behave in a distinctive
fashion. (Coon, 1958:153)
On the other hand, Western societies are more inclined toward
individualism, simple rather than extended family structure,
and relative de-emphasis on extended kinship ties and
ingroup affiliations (e.g., Horowitz, 1985; Triandis, 1995;
MacDonald, 1998/2002). Ethnic conflict in Western societies
is correspondingly less intense than in Africa and Asia,
where collectivist societies are the norm: “In the divided societies
of the West, . . . there is generally a more complex
pattern of group loyalties than in Asia and Africa. Ethnic
loyalties are less exhaustive, for they compete with an array
of other politically important loyalties, reflected in mixed
party systems and complex issue configurations” (Horowitz,
1985:21). “The world of ethnic relations would be quite different—
and, I believe less civil than it already is—were it
not for the pervasive importance of individualist thought”
(Horowitz, 1985:89).
Rational Choice Mechanisms
Humans possess rational choice mechanisms that make cost/
benefit calculations aimed at adaptively attaining evolutionary
goals in novel environments. In psychological terminology,
these are domain-general mechanisms, such as the
g-factor of intelligence tests, classical conditioning, and
social learning, that enable humans to make rational, adaptive
choices in novel, complex, and relatively unpredictable
environments (MacDonald, 1991; Chiappe and
MacDonald, in press). Applied to the issue of group membership,
such mechanisms enable individuals to opportunistically
join or leave groups depending on immediate cost/
benefit calculations (see Goetze, 1998), to efficiently monitor
group boundaries to prevent free-riding, and to regulate
relationships with outgroups (MacDonald, 1994/2002).
For example, the promise of financial rewards might
incline a person to abandon one group for another (e.g.,
those who converted to Islam during the Turkish occupation
of the Balkans). Jewish religious law has highly elabo75
Politics and the Life Sciences March 2001
Ethnic Identity
rated regulations regarding Jews who inform on other Jews
or endanger the lives of other Jews; these laws were invoked
in a steady stream of cases against Jews who betrayed
other Jews, often for personal profit (Shahak and
Mezvinsky, 1999). Rational choice mechanisms also underlie
defining and pursuing group interests in constantly
changing environments, as, for example, in navigating the
institutional structure of modern multi-ethnic democracies.
Discussions of general intelligence emphasize that intelligence
is useful in solving novel problems. From an
evolutionary perspective, a critical function is the attainment
of evolutionary goals in unfamiliar and novel conditions
characterized by a minimal amount of prior knowledge
(fluid intelligence): “[Fluid intelligence] reasoning abilities
consist of strategies, heuristics, and automatized systems
that must be used in dealing with ‘novel’ problems,
educing relations, and solving inductive, deductive, and
conjunctive reasoning tasks” (Horn and Hofer, 1992:88).
Research on intelligence has consistently found that more
intelligent people are better at attaining goals in unfamiliar
and novel conditions characterized by a minimal amount
of prior knowledge. Intelligence is “what you use when
you don’t know what to do” (C. Bereiter, in Jensen,
1998:111).
The general model is that human evolved motive dispositions
may be attained by a variety of mechanisms. It is
often noted by evolutionary psychologists that humans are
not designed as generalized fitness maximizers—that our
adaptations are geared to solve specific problems in specific
past environments (e.g., Tooby and Cosmides, 1992).
However, the model adopted here—the model of domaingeneral
mechanisms aimed at attaining evolutionary goals
in novel, unpredictable environments—has quite different
implications. That is, humans are conceptualized as potentially
flexible strategizers (Alexander, 1979) in pursuit of
evolutionary goals. From this perspective, individuals are
members of ethnic groups as rational egoists (Tullberg and
Tullberg, 1997), and the ethnic groups themselves behave
as rational egoists.
For example, in the ethnically divided societies of Asia
and Africa, ethnic groups typically form political parties to
advance their interests within the current institutional structure
(Horowitz, 1985:293ff). Behaving adaptively in this
institutional structure requires domain-general problemsolving
mechanisms. These mechanisms generate explicit
plans based on assessments of the current situation, making
alliances, rallying ingroup members, and obtaining resources.
Similarly, the interests of minority groups in
contemporary Western societies are typically advanced via
knowledge of the political and legal process: developing
mechanisms for raising money; utilizing and creating social
science research to influence media messages; rallying
ingroup members and manipulating ingroup and
outgroup members; utilizing the internet, etc. Classical
conditioning, another domain-general mechanism
(MacDonald and Chiappe, 2002) may also be important.
Johnson (1997) proposes that manipulation of kinship terms
to increase allegiance to ingroups relies on classical conditioning
of relationships whose emotional power derives
from their being rooted in kinship recognition mechanisms
(e.g., motherland, brotherhood).
Because of the linkage between IQ and economic success
(Gottfredson, 1997; Lynn and Vanhanen , 2002), groups
such as the Overseas Chinese and Diaspora Jews, with a
relatively high IQ—a domain general ability—are able to
attain relatively high levels of economic success; they therefore
have the resources to support effective ethnic interest
organizations and influence the political process. Domain
general abilities that evolved to solve novel problems in
constantly shifting environments are used to advance evolutionarily
ancient goals.
Several theorists have emphasized that ethnic groups are
not natural entities, but are socially constructed entities typically
aimed at achieving the political and economic interests
of ethnic leaders (and, I suppose, in at least some cases,
their followers). This perspective fits well with the domaingeneral
perspective developed here. Ethnies can indeed appear
and disappear; they coalesce and divide, and kinship
relationships may be manipulated in a self-serving manner
(e.g., Anderson, 1983; Horowitz, 1985). There is the belief,
if not always the reality, of common descent. Nevertheless,
there is every reason to suppose that the coalescing and dispersing
often reflects evolutionarily comprehensible interests.
As van den Berghe (1999:23) notes, “Ethnic relations
always involve the interplay of the objective reality of biological
descent and the subjective perception, definition and
manipulation of that objective reality.”
Given the importance of biological descent for understanding
human interests and the flexibility provided by domain
general mechanisms to achieve those interests, we may ask
how one might in general develop a biologically adaptive
ethnic group given the evolutionarily novel environment of
large states with hundreds of millions of people and with a
myriad of genetic fault lines. Designing adaptive strategies
is nothing new. Among other things, the Old Testament provides
a clearly articulated strategy for surviving and prospering
economically while maintaining genetic integrity of
the ingroup and for specializing in particular economic
niches. There are other examples, including the Spartans
(MacDonald, 1988, 1994/2002), and several Christian groups
that have emulated aspects of Old Testament practices (e.g.,
Puritans, Mormons, Anabaptists—Miele, 2000; MacDonald,
1994/2002; Wilson, 2002).
Another common pattern reflecting perceptions of rational
self-interest has been for ethnic groups to pursue strategies
of assimilation with closely related groups in order
to increase their strength in a multi-ethnic environment created
in the post-colonial era. For example, the Fang of
Gabon “sensed that, in a political conflict, their clan and
dialect divisions were a disadvantage, and they set about
76 Politics and the Life Sciences March 2001
Ethnic Identity
recreating their former unity. A prominent part of the Fang
revival was played by a legend of common origin and migration,
which rested on genuine genealogies but also contained
new elements, of dubious historical accuracy”
(Horowitz, 1985:70).
An obvious strategy for maximizing individual genetic
interests in the contemporary world would be to use domain-
general problem-solving mechanisms to discover
ideal patterns of association with others, depending on
their genetic distance from self. Ethnic groups are breeding
populations; individuals have genetic interests in ethnic
groups by virtue of having a greater concentration of
inclusive fitness in their own ethnic group than other ethnic
groups (Salter, 2002). For example, population genetic
studies show that the various European populations
are much closer genetically than continentally separated
races (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994), and that the distances
between those populations correspond approximately to
what a reasonably well informed historian, demographer,
or tourist would expect. All things being equal, Scandinavians
have greater overlap of genetic interests with other
Scandinavians than other Europeans, and Europeans have
a greater genetic interest in other Europeans than in Africans
(see Figures 1 and 2).
The point is that whatever the fuzziness that characterizes
genetic distances, people can creatively decide how best
to strategize to promote their genetic interests in the current
environment (see Salter’s [2002] conceptual typology of strategies
for advancing genetic ethnic interests). Reasoning about
creating adaptive ethnic groups in the novel environments
present in the contemporary world is a problem that is solvable
with domain general mechanisms. For example, Goetze
(1997) notes that the optimal size of a political unit varies as
a function of context: small states are not viable in a world
of hostile empires, and even in the modern world, small states
may be the victims of unfavorable regional environments.
An ethnic strategizer could look at the map of European
genetic distances and decide to promote, organize, and identify
with movements of his closest genetic grouping. Thus, a
Swede might opt for the advancement of the Swedish and
Norwegian gene pool, or a Yugoslav might opt for the Yugoslavian
and Greek gene pools. Or such a person could look
at the larger map and promote, organize, and identify with
the Caucasoid group, or could promote, organize, and iden-
Figure 1. Genetic Tree of 26 European Populations Based on Fst Measures Estimated from the Average of 88 Genes
Source: Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza, 1994:268
Dutch
Danish
English
Swiss
German
Belgian
Austrian
French
Swedish
Norwegian
Czechoslovakian
Portuguese
Italian
Spanish
Hungarian
Polish
Russian
Scottish
Irish
Finnish
Icelandic
Basque
Yugoslavian
Greek
Sardinian
Lapp
0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01 0
Genetic distance ( Fst)
77 Politics and the Life Sciences March 2001
Ethnic Identity
tify with an alliance between Caucasoids and Northeast
Asians. How one decides these issues is a pragmatic matter
involving optimizing long-term evolutionary interests best
achieved via the decontextualizing and abstraction functions
characteristic of domain-general mechanisms.
Given our current knowledge of human genetic distances
and human behavior, as well as the need to cement powerful
alliances able to act effectively on the world stage, some
choices are obviously better than others. I suppose that it
would be foolish for a Scandinavian-American, for example,
to promote Scandinavian-American interests to the exclusion
of larger groupings, because larger groupings would have
more political clout, especially in a multi-ethnic context like
the United States. I suppose the best strategy would be an
analogy with the model of inclusive fitness in which people
participate in ethnic groups as a function of genetic distance—
at the extreme, teaming up with all of humanity against an
alien invader.
Notice that there is no one natural place on this genetic
landscape where it is rational to direct one’s energy. Different
contexts demand different responses, and even one’s best
choices are made under uncertainty. An effective response
for a Serbian living in Kosovo might be quite different from
an effective response for a Serbian living in the United States.
The former, feeling threatened by a cohesive, non-assimilating
European ethnic/religious group (the Albanians), may
choose to identify with a narrow and relatively homogeneous
ethnic group. The latter, feeling confronted by a polyglot of
many different ethnic and racial groups, may choose to identify
with larger divisions of European-derived peoples in the
United States. But whatever choices are made, domain-general
problem solving is critical to the choices that are made.
Conclusion
Of the mechanisms discussed here, only GST and the putative
evolved human racial/ethnic kinds module imply a
genetically based assessment of genetic distance. Social
identity mechanisms are triggered by crowds of ethnically
identical people on opposing sides at football games, or
even arbitrarily created groups, as well as when the
outgroup is a different race or ethnic group. According to
Hirschfeld and Gil-White, essentialist thinking about race
and ethnicity is not the result of real, genetically influenced
racial or ethnic differences. And domain-general
rational choice mechanisms may be utilized in the service
of attaining any number of human goals (e.g., social
status) in addition to maximizing genetic interests by forming
optimal coalitions based on current scientific estimates
of genetic similarity.
I suggest that social identity mechanisms were adaptive
in the EEA because an important set of outgroups were
groups living in nearby areas that did not show detectable
physical differences in appearance while nevertheless being
on average less genetically similar than ingroups. That
is, members of a given tribe or band were more closely
related to other members of their ingroup than they were to
other tribes or bands, even if there were no detectable differences
in physical appearance. As a result, mechanisms
that result in discrimination in favor of ingroup and against
outgroups would also tend to benefit people genetically.
Obviously, in multi-racial, multi-ethnic states, social identity
mechanisms may often result in maladaptive behavior,
because ingroups and outgroups can be manipulated by the
media, ethnic leaders, and other elites.
Mechanisms that do not assess genetic distance seem
unable to account for the extraordinarily stubborn continuity
of ethnic consciousness in many parts of the world.
As van den Berghe (1999:31) notes, many ethnic groupings
are remarkably stable: the Flemings and Walloons of
Belgium, for example, are “almost exactly where their ancestors
were when Julius Caesar wrote De Bello Gallica.”
It is difficult to imagine how social identity mechanisms
could produce such stability, given that these mechanisms
Caucasoid
Northeast Asia
Arctic Asia
America
Southeast Asia
New Guinea & Australia
non-African
African
Figure 2. Genetic Distances between Seven Major Population Groups
Note: The African group is more distant from all the others, which are more closely related to each other than to the Africans.
Source: Drawn from Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza, 1994:79
78 Politics and the Life Sciences March 2001
Ethnic Identity
are triggered even in arbitrarily created groups. Mechanisms
for assessing genetic distance, as proposed by GST
and built into the putative racial/ethnic human kinds module,
are the most reasonable candidates for the persistence
of the ethnic phenomenon. As noted above, there is substantial
evidence for direct kin recognition mechanisms
in a variety of animals and plants (Pfennig and Sherman,
1995). Assessing the degree to which these genetically
sensitive processes are important in ethnic conflict is difficult
because, in actual cases, ethnic differences coincide
with a variety of cultural markers, such as language
and religion, that would be expected to trigger social identity
mechanisms. As a result, it is difficult to know the
extent to which judgments of genetic distance are actually
relevant to the sense of being part of an ethnic ingroup.
One can imagine a thought experiment in which people
are stripped entirely of their consciously held group identities,
followed by assessment of the extent to which they
assort on the basis of genetic distance. The results of GST
research indicate that genetically similar others would be
preferred as spouses, friends, and as partners in alliances.
Such a world is an atomistic world, however; it is insufficient
by itself to create ethnic groups. To accomplish that,
mechanisms of social identity, including establishing and
maintaining group boundaries, are required. The results of
social identity research indicate that the boundaries may
be drawn in a arbitrary manner and still result in ingroup
favoritism and discrimination against outgroups. Nevertheless,
the results of GST predict that such groups would lack
the rapport and cohesion of ingroups that are more genetically
similar compared to the outgroups they are living
among. Genetically similar groups composed of similar
appearing people would also trigger the putative racial/ethnic
human kinds module, thereby leading to a natural sense
of “we-ness.”
To that extent, ethnic groups composed of genetically
similar others are indeed natural groups, and it is mechanisms
of genetic similarity and, quite possibly, a racial/ethnic
human kinds module that account ultimately for the
staying power of ethnicity as a human grouping.
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