This paper presents new theory and evidence on the link between intergroup violence
and altruism in diverse post-conflict context. Theory from political science and
psychology predicts that intergroup conflict causes ingroup solidarity and outgroup
aggression that may persist after conflict’s end. In contrast, we argue that empathy
born from violence can cause greater ingroup and outgroup altruism: the experience of
hardship and trauma during violence increases empathetic concern; empathetic concern
transcends identity boundaries and motivates altruistic behavior toward both ingroup
and outgroup others. We test our theory in the context of the 2010-2011 Ivorian refugee
crisis in Liberia using observational and survey experimental data on the support provided
by host communities to a diverse population of refugees. In contrast to theories
of parochial altruism, we find that individuals and communities with high levels of
exposure to violence during the Liberian civil war are less biased against outgroup
refugees and more responsive to refugee distress. We also find that violence-affected
individuals and communities host more refugees, do so for longer, host more outgroup
refugees — even those co-ethnic to their wartime rivals — and host a higher share of
refugees with health problems or fleeing direct violence. Lastly, we provide support
for the generalizability of the mechanism by using external data to show that past
experience of violence is associated with greater altruism within diverse communities
in rural Liberia.