Spiritual over physical formidability determines willingness to fight and sacrifice through loyalty in cross-cultural populations

Abstract

Significance Despite intermittent interest in and evidence of the importance of nonmaterial factors in war and other extreme forms of intergroup conflict, material factors such as optimal use of physical strength, manpower, and firepower remain the dominant concerns of US and allied military training, decision-making, and related academic literature. In this work, we demonstrate the cross-cultural primacy of personal spiritual over physical formidability on the will to fight in populations from the Middle East, Europe, and North America, including US cadets in whom stronger group loyalty mediates the effect. This empirical examination of spiritual formidability and its link between self and group in willingness to self-sacrifice aims to extend understanding of interpersonal and intergroup conflict and inform considerations of policy.