Led by @sabdurah.bsky.social w/ Farzan Karimi-Malekabadi, Chenxiao Yu, @nourkteily.bsky.social
Here is the link to the paper: arxiv.org/abs/2512.17066
In our 2x2 simulation, Realistic Threat (safety/resources) was the heavy hitter. It was the most reliable predictor of actual behavioral escalation.
Symbolic Threat drove ingroup bias and "hateful" speech but rarely escalated conflict on its own.