“The supreme need of humanity is cooperation and reciprocity. The stronger the ties of fellowship and solidarity amongst men, the greater will be the power of constructiveness and accomplishment in all the planes of human activity.” (1)
There is lots of evidence that our survival as a species has been supported by cooperation. For many years it was believed that social norms were the most effective way to reinforce cooperative behaviour. In short, the theory was that if there is a culture of cooperation within a group then that will make it more likely that each of the individuals within the group with cooperate. This suggested that we could just develop rules for cooperation and all would be well.
But somehow this has never really worked all that well, has it?
Now new research suggests that reciprocity (you scratch my back…) is more influential than social norms when it comes to each individual making a decision to cooperate. (2) In other words, the relationships between human beings, “…the ties of fellowship and solidarity…” are the most effective method to ensure cooperation. This takes a bit more work than just following a set of guidelines but it appears that it also delivers more consistent results.
Makes sense to me 🙂
#bahaiblogging
Very interesting research! You cause me to think about how I’m motivated to get along with others. A little self-examination is in order!