Skip to main content
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses

New Research In

Physical Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Applied Mathematics
  • Applied Physical Sciences
  • Astronomy
  • Computer Sciences
  • Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
  • Engineering
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics

Social Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Economic Sciences
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Political Sciences
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Social Sciences

Biological Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Agricultural Sciences
  • Anthropology
  • Applied Biological Sciences
  • Biochemistry
  • Biophysics and Computational Biology
  • Cell Biology
  • Developmental Biology
  • Ecology
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Evolution
  • Genetics
  • Immunology and Inflammation
  • Medical Sciences
  • Microbiology
  • Neuroscience
  • Pharmacology
  • Physiology
  • Plant Biology
  • Population Biology
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Sustainability Science
  • Systems Biology
Research Article

Brothers in arms: Libyan revolutionaries bond like family

Harvey Whitehouse, Brian McQuinn, Michael Buhrmester, and William B. Swann Jr.
PNAS December 16, 2014 111 (50) 17783-17785; first published November 10, 2014; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1416284111
Harvey Whitehouse
aInstitute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom OX2 6PN; and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: harvey.whitehouse@anthro.ox.ac.uk
Brian McQuinn
aInstitute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom OX2 6PN; and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Michael Buhrmester
aInstitute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom OX2 6PN; and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
William B. Swann Jr.
bDepartment of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  1. Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved October 9, 2014 (received for review August 24, 2014)

See related content:

  • Devoted actors sacrifice for comrades and cause
    - Dec 03, 2014
  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Significance

The human propensity to sacrifice one’s life for genetic strangers has puzzled scientists since Darwin. Here, we sought answers to this puzzle by embedding ourselves within groups of individuals prepared to die for one another—Libyan revolutionary battalion members who fought against Gaddafi’s regime in 2011. We found striking evidence of extraordinarily tight, familial-like bonds among those who put themselves directly in harm’s way (i.e., frontline combatants). In fact, for nearly half of combatants, their bonds to each other were stronger than bonds to their own families. Moreover, these kin-like bonds to one another predispose them to extreme self-sacrifice.

Abstract

What motivates ordinary civilians to sacrifice their lives for revolutionary causes? We surveyed 179 Libyan revolutionaries during the 2011 conflict in Libya. These civilians-turned-fighters rejected Gaddafi’s jamahiriyya (state of the masses) and formed highly cohesive fighting units typical of intense conflicts. Fighters reported high levels of “identity fusion”—visceral, family-like bonds between fighters and their battalions. Fusion of revolutionaries with their local battalions and their own families were extremely high, especially relative to Libyans who favored the revolution but did not join battalions. Additionally, frontline combatants were as strongly bonded to their battalion as they were to their own families, but battalion members who provided logistical support were more fused with their families than battalions. Together, these findings help illuminate the social bonds that seem to motivate combatants to risk their lives for the group during wartime.

  • revolutionary war
  • intergroup conflict
  • group identity
  • self-sacrifice
  • identity fusion

During the revolutionary war in Libya in 2011, thousands of civilians formed small revolutionary battalions to overthrow the Gaddafi-led regime. Although most fighters were not kin, in such conflicts cocombatants characteristically express feelings of brotherhood for each other (1). In some cases, these feelings are strong enough to compel them to sacrifice their lives for one another. Such willingness to self-sacrifice for genetic strangers has puzzled scientists since Darwin. By embedding ourselves in a battalion during the revolution, we were able to explore this phenomenon empirically.

Participants were either frontline combatants (high exposure to risk and suffering) or logistical supporters (lower exposure) who completed a brief questionnaire. Items were inspired by recent evidence suggesting that some members of groups develop a visceral, family-like sense of unity or “identity fusion” with their group (2, 3). Evidence suggests that fusion with a group (e.g., one’s country) is a key proximal cause of personally costly, progroup behavior or “parochial altruism.” For instance, fused individuals are particularly apt to say they will fight and die for their country (4, 5). In hypothetical scenarios based on the classic “trolley dilemma,” fused persons endorse diving in front of a speeding train to save the lives of fellow group members (5⇓–7). These findings suggest that identity fusion may predispose civilians to enact extreme sacrifices in naturally occurring settings, such as joining a militia that is pursuing a goal that is shared by one’s group.

In July 2011, 4 months into the Libyan revolution, the second author (B.M.) joined a humanitarian relief convoy traveling from Malta to Misrata. There, he noted that rebels spontaneously formed microgroups of three to five fighters constituting each battalion. Rebels were together constantly, eating, praying, sleeping, and fighting as “bands of brothers” or katiba. As the revolution came to an end, the first author (H.W.) joined B.M. and met with the revolutionary leadership in Misrata. The leaders agreed to allow members of several battalions to complete our questionnaire.

To develop the questionnaire for Libyan revolutionaries, the first and second authors first carried out focus groups as part of a larger fieldwork endeavor in Libya. The first and second authors were primarily based in Misrata, Libya, and one local contact, a bilingual battalion member, assisted with the administration of the survey and recruitment of battalion member participants.

Participants were 179 male, Libyan nationals (Mage = 28.03 y, SD 4.68 y, range 20–48 y) from four different battalions registered with the Misratan Military Council. Respondents self-identified as primarily frontline fighters (defined as those who served on the frontline with an assault rifle; n = 42) or battalion nonfighters (i.e., logistical supporters, such as workers who serviced vehicles or drove ambulances; n = 137).

Participants then completed the pictorial fusion scale (2) in reference to four different groups (own family, own battalion, other revolutionary battalions in Libya, and ordinary Libyans who supported the revolution but were not a part of a combat battalion). Each participant chose which of five pictorial representations best represented their relationship to the group (Fig. 1A). Choosing the option showing the “self” circle completely enveloped by the “group” circle merited classification as fused with the group. Participants who chose any of the other options (indicating partial or no overlap between the “self” and “group”) were considered not fused with the group (see ref. 2 for scale and coding details).

Fig. 1.
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint
Fig. 1.

Identity fusion among Libyan revolutionaries. (A) The pictorial measure of identity fusion. (B) Key study findings.

Nearly all participants indicated that they were fused with their own family (99%), own battalions (97%), and other battalions (96%). The near-ceiling levels of fusion with own family, battalion, and other battalions are remarkable. Dozens of studies in more than 10 countries (8) have shown that in peacetime populations exhibit rates of fusion with their nation ranging from 6% [fusion with Europe (4)] to 41% [fusion with Spain (2)]. Conversely, only 1% indicated that they were fused with ordinary Libyans who supported the revolution but did not join battalions. The near-floor levels of fusion with ordinary Libyans were surprising as well. In later interviews, many participants viewed noncombatants as free-riders who stood to benefit from the ouster of Gaddafi without having made significant sacrifices themselves. The dismissive attitudes of fighters toward ordinary Libyans may have sown the seeds for the dissension that emerged among the revolutionaries after the war.

Consistent with other Arab Spring movements, younger participants were especially inclined to become fighters rather than nonfighters [r (177) = −0.18, P = 0.015]. Younger men were also especially apt to report being more fused with their battalion than their family [r (177) = −0.15, P = 0.048]. Together, these results are in line with perspectives on young males as especially predisposed to form powerful bonds that buttress willingness to die for one’s group (9, 10).

Finally, participants were asked to choose the group with which they felt most fused. Consistent with past work on the primacy of the family unit (8), 68% of participants indicated they felt most fused with their family, 32% felt most fused with their own battalion, and no participants said they felt most fused to other revolutionary battalions or ordinary Libyans. Importantly, the tendency to favor family over battalion was moderated by fighter vs. nonfighter role [χ2(1) = 4.13, r (177) = 0.15, P = 0.04]. Whereas only slightly more than one-quarter (28%) of nonfighters reported being more fused with their battalion than family, almost half (45%) of fighters reported being most fused with their battalion. In addition, self-rated commitment to the goals of the revolution [“To what degree are your personal interests the same as the interests of the revolution? From 0 (extremely different) to 6 (exactly the same); M = 4.57, SD .76] was associated with role in the revolution [r (176) = .17, P = 0.02], such that fighters were more personally committed to the goals of the revolution than nonfighters.

The tendency for fighters to express stronger fusion with the battalion than nonfighters may reflect either of two processes. One possibility is that high levels of fusion with the battalion may have caused people to volunteer for frontline combat. Libyan revolutionary battalions were formed organically and without coerced enlistment, making it possible that those who were highly fused and thus highly willing to risk their lives freely chose to become frontline combatants. Such a scenario would suggest that fusion compels group members to translate their intentions into risking their lives on the frontlines of war.

A second possibility is that fighting may have fostered fusion with the group. This explanation is consistent with a wealth of cross-cultural ethnographic work on the effects of intense, dysphoric rituals on group cohesion (11, 12). This work suggests that perceiving experiences that define the personal self as being shared with other group members may be one of the most common pathways to family-like bonds (i.e., identity fusion) (3). That is, in some social groups, life-shaping experiences may take the form of group-sanctioned, extreme rituals [e.g., painful initiation rites (12)] or chance life events, such as witnessing the horrors of ethnic cleansing or engaging in intense battle (13). Such experiences commonly produce “flashbulb memories” (14) prompting a search for sense and meaning through subsequent reflection that may result in a sense of shared essence and fusion with coparticipants (3).

Whether fusion with the group encourages people to take up the fight, taking up the fight encourages fusion, or both, our findings make one point clear: When ordinary citizens band together and do battle, their connections to one another take on familial—or even suprafamilial—qualities. Moreover, once formed, these family ties may compel combatants to make extreme sacrifices for their group, including even the ultimate sacrifice.

Our findings contribute to evolutionary perspectives on altruistic behavior and to understanding of military groups in general. Although cohesion in the military has been extensively studied, the primary focus has been on how cohesion affects group performance rather than self-sacrifice (15). Our evidence that frontline fighters bearing the brunt of enemy fire most strongly fused to their units is consistent with the longstanding but untested hypothesis that relational ties with cocombatants, resulting from shared deprivation and negative stress, motivates participation in combat (16, 17).

Materials and Methods

Before the study, we received verbal consent from leadership within the councils to interview and survey members of these groups. In one of the groups surveyed, we were fortunate to obtain a list of members beforehand, which allowed us to draw names at random to contact for participation in the study. In the other groups, no lists were available, so we recruited every third or fourth member we encountered (resulting in a pseudorandom sampling of the battalion population). In addition, a bilingual research assistant translated all study materials from English to Arabic. Materials were also back-translated to ensure the translations were accurate.

The research was conducted in concordance with the Ethics Guidelines of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. This study received ethical approval from the University of Oxford’s Social Sciences and Humanities Interdivisional Research Ethics Committee, a unit of the Central University Research Ethics Committee, in 2011 before study commencement. Before participation, survey administrators explained the purpose of the study, then asked participants if they would be willing to voluntarily participate without compensation. Where reasonably practicable, written consent was obtained. However, in many cases, audio-recorded oral consent was obtained owing to participant concerns about remaining anonymous. The ethics committee approved both forms of consent. Given our goal to collect a large N sample without unduly disrupting the work of battalion participants, we kept the survey very brief (less than 5 min to complete) and used simple questions that we believed would not elicit socially desirable or otherwise biased responses. Additionally, participants were surveyed individually to avoid social pressures from others. After completion of the survey, participants were thanked and debriefed. Participants were asked to not discuss the survey with other potential participants. Data reported here are available upon request from the first author.

We collected data from a total of 185 participants (Mage = 28.08 y, SD 4.70 y, range 20–48 y). Six participants did not provide answers to multiple survey questions, thus their data were excluded from further analysis. This left a final sample of 179 participants. One additional participant failed to answer only the question regarding goal alignment, but his data were not dropped from analyses.

Acknowledgments

We thank A. Bailey-Gilreath and A. Gilreath for their comments regarding this research. This study was supported by Economic and Social Research Council Grant REF RES-060-25-0085 (to H.W.), John Templeton Foundation Grant 37624 (to H.W. and M.B.), John Fell Oxford University Press Research Fund Award 131/072 (to H.W. and M.B.), and National Science Foundation Grant BCS-1124382 (to W.B.S.).

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: harvey.whitehouse{at}anthro.ox.ac.uk.
  • Author contributions: H.W., B.M., M.B., and W.B.S. and designed research; H.W. and B.M. performed research; M.B. analyzed data; and H.W., B.M., M.B., and W.B.S. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • See Commentary on page 17702.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

View Abstract

References

  1. ↵
    1. Kinzer Stewart N
    (1991) Mates & Muchachos: Unit Cohesion in the Falklands/Malvinas War (Brassey's, New York)
    .
  2. ↵
    1. Swann WB Jr,
    2. Gómez A,
    3. Seyle DC,
    4. Morales JF,
    5. Huici C
    (2009) Identity fusion: The interplay of personal and social identities in extreme group behavior. J Pers Soc Psychol 96(5):995–1011
    .
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  3. ↵
    1. Swann WB Jr,
    2. Jetten J,
    3. Gómez A,
    4. Whitehouse H,
    5. Bastian B
    (2012) When group membership gets personal: A theory of identity fusion. Psychol Rev 119(3):441–456
    .
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  4. ↵
    1. Swann WB Jr,
    2. Gómez A,
    3. Huici C,
    4. Morales JF,
    5. Hixon JG
    (2010) Identity fusion and self-sacrifice: Arousal as a catalyst of pro-group fighting, dying, and helping behavior. J Pers Soc Psychol 99(5):824–841
    .
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  5. ↵
    1. Gómez A, et al.
    (2011) On the nature of identity fusion: Insights into the construct and a new measure. J Pers Soc Psychol 100(5):918–933
    .
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  6. ↵
    1. Swann WB Jr,
    2. Gómez A,
    3. Dovidio JF,
    4. Hart S,
    5. Jetten J
    (2010) Dying and killing for one’s group: Identity fusion moderates responses to intergroup versions of the trolley problem. Psychol Sci 21(8):1176–1183
    .
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  7. ↵
    1. Swann WB Jr, et al.
    (2014) Contemplating the ultimate sacrifice: Identity fusion channels pro-group affect, cognition, and moral decision making. J Pers Soc Psychol 106(5):713–727
    .
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  8. ↵
    1. Swann WB Jr, et al.
    (2014) What makes a group worth dying for? Identity fusion fosters perception of familial ties, promoting self-sacrifice. J Pers Soc Psychol 106(6):912–926
    .
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  9. ↵
    1. Atran S
    (2010) Talking to the Enemy (Harper-Collins, New York)
    .
  10. ↵
    Shadid A (March 13, 2011) Veering from peaceful models, Libya’s youth revolt turns toward chaos. NY Times, Section A, p 13
    .
  11. ↵
    1. Sun R
    1. Whitehouse H
    (2012) in Ritual, Cognition, and Evolution. Grounding the Social Sciences in the Cognitive Sciences, ed Sun R (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA), pp 265–284
    .
  12. ↵
    1. Whitehouse H
    (1996) Rites of terror: Emotion, metaphor, and memory in Melanesian initiation cults. J R Anthropol Inst 2(4):703–715
    .
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  13. ↵
    1. Whitehouse H
    (2004) Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission (AltaMira, Walnut Creek)
    .
  14. ↵
    1. Conway MA
    (2005) Memory and the self. J Mem Lang 53:594–628
    .
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  15. ↵
    1. Siebold GL
    (2007) The essence of military group cohesion. Armed Forces Soc 33(2):286–295
    .
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  16. ↵
    1. Shils EA,
    2. Janowitz M
    (1948) Cohesion and disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II. Public Opin Q 12(2):280–315
    .
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  17. ↵
    1. Savage PL,
    2. Gabriel RA
    (1978) Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the US Army (Hill & Wang, New York)
    .
PreviousNext
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Brothers in arms: Libyan revolutionaries bond like family
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Brothers in arms
Harvey Whitehouse, Brian McQuinn, Michael Buhrmester, William B. Swann
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Dec 2014, 111 (50) 17783-17785; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1416284111

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Brothers in arms
Harvey Whitehouse, Brian McQuinn, Michael Buhrmester, William B. Swann
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Dec 2014, 111 (50) 17783-17785; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1416284111
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 111 (50)
Table of Contents

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Article Classifications

  • Social Sciences
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Materials and Methods
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Abstract depiction of a guitar and musical note
Science & Culture: At the nexus of music and medicine, some see disease treatments
Although the evidence is still limited, a growing body of research suggests music may have beneficial effects for diseases such as Parkinson’s.
Image credit: Shutterstock/agsandrew.
Scientist looking at an electronic tablet
Opinion: Standardizing gene product nomenclature—a call to action
Biomedical communities and journals need to standardize nomenclature of gene products to enhance accuracy in scientific and public communication.
Image credit: Shutterstock/greenbutterfly.
One red and one yellow modeled protein structures
Journal Club: Study reveals evolutionary origins of fold-switching protein
Shapeshifting designs could have wide-ranging pharmaceutical and biomedical applications in coming years.
Image credit: Acacia Dishman/Medical College of Wisconsin.
White and blue bird
Hazards of ozone pollution to birds
Amanda Rodewald, Ivan Rudik, and Catherine Kling talk about the hazards of ozone pollution to birds.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Goats standing in a pin
Transplantation of sperm-producing stem cells
CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can improve the effectiveness of spermatogonial stem cell transplantation in mice and livestock, a study finds.
Image credit: Jon M. Oatley.

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Latest Articles
  • Archive

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490