The Social INdividual’s Decisions: how are they shaped by group affiliation during collective decisions?

“…we are—and always were—ready to pay any price to be accepted by society.” Hannah Arendt. Belonging to a group helps maintain a shared social identity. Individuals can belong to a political party, to a country, to a union of countries etc. How do these multiple group affiliations shape individuals’ decisions within groups?

Through an interdisciplinary approach drawing on cognitive science, neuroscience, behavioural economics, social psychology and political science, this project aims to characterize the cognitive mechanisms underlying the influence of group affiliation on collective decision-making.

We will investigate how different stages of cognitive processes—from information processing to consequential decisions— are affected by the nature of the collective: multilevel in-groups and outgroup.

Previously established experimental paradigms in individual behaviour will be applied to group decision making to test the predictions that 1) group affiliation disrupts accurate information processing, 2) group affiliation increases alignment and responsibility sharing with group members for cooperative and leadership decisions, and 3) the group affiliation influence on decisions will vary as a function of individuals’ political attitudes and gender.

Given the relevance of the proposed research questions to the current political climate in Europe, they will be further explored in the political context: the experiments will be tested online on a European population sample in a dedicated political research centre, in order to help explain individual citizens’ behaviours in our group-based society.

The findings of this project will provide insights into the reasons driving an increase of inward-looking policies (Brexit and rise of populist parties in Europe), which represents a threat to the European Research Area that rests on strong collaborations between different European countries and their citizens.