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CSSC researchers have been studying the causes of self-sacrifice in armed groups ranging from tribal warriors to modern armies and from revolutionary insurgents to suicide terrorists. One of the surprising findings of this work is that extreme self-sacrifice may not be motivated by religious beliefs (or in fact by any kind of ideology) but by a combination of two main factors – a distinctive form of group alignment known as ‘identity fusion’ combined with the conviction that the group is under threat. Fusion of personal and group identities may result from sharing transformative experiences.

Although social cohesion is one of the most powerful drivers of intergroup conflict, it can also be one of the most enduring solutions. Loving a group entails a commitment to defending it when it is under attack, but what if the group could be expanded to encompass humanity at large? And what if external threats were not so much other groups but global problems facing all of us? CSSC researchers have been exploring the psychological processes that enable us to bond with larger and larger groups –not only with other humans but across the species barrier.