Why do people risk their lives fighting in wars? This article looks beyond group grievance and material benefits to addanother psychological mechanism explaining why people choose to fight ornotto fight – perceived collective action.An individual is...
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Why do people risk their lives fighting in wars? This article looks beyond group grievance and material benefits to addanother psychological mechanism explaining why people choose to fight ornotto fight – perceived collective action.An individual is much more likely to fight when they perceive that others will also fight. Contrary to the expectationsof social identity theory and social pressure theory, the effect of perceived collective action is stronger among thosewho have a weaker national identity because they are more likely to rationally calculate the chance of winning byaccounting for others’ decisions. To mitigate the endogeneity in post-conflict cross-sectional surveys, we conduct asurvey experiment (n¼1,001) in Taiwan manipulating perceptions of others’ willingness to fight in a potentialChina–Taiwan military conflict. Experimental evidence supports the hypotheses that perceived collective actionworks only on weak Taiwanese identifiers. The result holds in robustness checks and in another nationally repre-sentative survey.
