While individuals within a group may prefer to be cooperative, once they join together to make a collective unit, individual orientations favoring cooperation tend to be overshadowed by competitive orientations of the group.
[2] The discontinuity between individuals and groups has been consistently replicated in laboratory settings, but are not confined to them.
These effects emerge during sports activities, sessions of classes, and even when groups merge to plan or strategize (Forsyth, 2010).
The discontinuity effect is consistent, which suggests that it emerges due to a number of causes, which may ultimately combine to intensify inter-group conflict.
[3] These causes are greed, anonymity, fear, ingroup favoritism, and diffusion of responsibility.