Healthy and Unhealthy Wars: The Effects of Ingroup-Committed Violence on Physical and Mental Health

Intergroup violence can profoundly affect the health of involved parties. Complementing existing research on ingroup-suffered violence and health, this paper proposes an integrative framework explicating how and why ingroup-committed violence can positively or negatively affect the health of ingroup members. Based on different models of social identity and health, we argue that ingroup identification (i.e., attachment and glorification) determines how people cope with ingroup-committed violence. We lay out different nondefensive strategies critically identified group members are likely to engage in, and defensive strategies uncritically identified members are likely to engage in. We further posit that nondefensive strategies are less adaptive for maintaining and/or improving health in the short (but not long) term than defensive strategies, and that ingroup identification can act as both moderator and mediator of the effects of ingroup-committed violence on health. Thus, harming outgroup members can hurt or help ingroup members.