The fire burns within: Individual motivations for self-sacrifice

Extreme self-sacrifice in intergroup conflict may not only be driven by situational factors generating fusion, but also by interindividual differences. Social Value Orientation is discussed as a potential contributor to self-harming behavior outside of intergroup conflicts, and to the general propensity to participate in intergroup conflict. SVO may therefore also be a person-specific determinant of extreme self-sacrifice in intergroup conflict.
Keywords: extreme self-sacrifice; intergroup conflict; social value orientation