Close-up of man and woman holding hands. Credit – Kelvin Murray—Getty Images
A.There seems to be conflict all around us. Global Conflict Tracker lists 27 conflicts around the world today; A sample of 1,490 leaders surveyed by the World Economic Forum said the biggest societal risk this year is polarization; and even Taylor Swift has been targeted out of fear that she will support President Biden and influence the 2024 election. Why can’t we all get along?
Surprisingly we do. Humans are almost like ants in the scale and scope of our cooperation, and conflicts of all kinds are less frequent and destructive than in the past. We take it for granted, but we should be surprised that people from so many different places around the world can live, work, and even commute in peace on packed trains and planes. As primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy points out in her acclaimed book, a plane full of chimpanzees who don’t know each other would be a plane full of dead and maimed monkeys, with blood and body parts strewn across the aisles: Mothers and Others.
The mechanisms that sustain cooperation are now well understood. The oldest of these is “inclusive fitness,” or cooperation between families and small tribes through shared genes. Ongoing cooperation for mutual benefit, or “direct reciprocity,” is the basis of friendships and networks. This mechanism is also very old and is found throughout the animal kingdom. Mutual benefit reaches our extensive networks through reputation and shared norms; it is the basis for cooperation among those who share religion, politics, and other group memberships. This is a uniquely human form of cooperation facilitated by our ability to gossip and keep tabs on everyone around us, even strangers.
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But there is always the risk of conflicts, both large and small. Fortunately, the science of cooperation reveals what it takes for mere tolerance to turn into camaraderie and camaraderie. For to them really be We.
Here are 3 lessons:
1. Competition helps us discover mutual benefit
After all, collaboration thrives when people expect to achieve more by working with others rather than on their own or in a smaller group; This is a maxim that is so common in every aspect of life that I call it “The Law of Cooperation.” This does not mean that all groups achieve this optimal scale. When we start a company, form an alliance, or try to make peace with an enemy, we cannot always know in advance whether the other party will do their part or share the reward fairly. . Collaboration depends not only on real rewards but also on people’s expectations. Many groups are trapped by historical grievances, false beliefs about the other side, or what can be gained by working together. Competition is what frees us from these inadequate traps.
In the 11th century, most trade was facilitated by known local people or was based on trust through family ties. But competition led to experimentation. Groups such as the Moorish Jewish Merchants attempted to create reputation-sharing and informal community enforcement mechanisms. Their experiments succeeded in expanding cooperation beyond family ties into a vast network of trust and trade that stretched from Spain to Sicily, Egypt and Palestine.
Perceived mutual benefit is why trade between two countries reduces the likelihood of war. You don’t want to fight with your factory unless you have another factory. Similarly, during the Industrial Revolution, the sharing of knowledge strengthened cooperation. Industrialization and the exploitation of a vast new energy source in the form of fossil fuels led to large factories, the expansion of education to create workforces for those factories, and educated workers forming coalitions and corporations to compete for the spoils.
2. Cooperation weakens cooperation
Corruption and civil conflict are often thought of as a puzzle, but they are less confusing than well-functioning institutions and peace. Corruption is often the oldest and most stable form of cooperation; they are the ties that bind us to families, friends and networks, and are relabeled as nepotism and nepotism. My colleagues and I have shown empirically how the possibility of “direct reciprocity”—indeed, bribery—undermines well-functioning institutions and how cultural exposure to bribery can increase its prevalence. In the West, these can often manifest as lobbyists, special interest groups and revolving doors. The most effective anti-corruption strategies are those that undermine these mechanisms of cooperation, such as banning revolving doors and creating cooling-off periods, in order to undermine alliances and prevent people from collaborating to undermine the system.
In The WeirDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich argues that the Catholic Church’s ban on cousin marriage and other reforms in European family practices beginning in the 4th century weakened European tribes and created the modern nuclear family. This weakened clientelism and paved the way for non-family businesses and more successful liberal democracies in Europe. Values such as individualism created by this change are spreading around the world through education, urbanization, and jobs that take people away from their families.
3. Perceptions can create reality
The US economy is currently growing rapidly, but there is a lag in the increase in consumer confidence. The perception that living standards are deteriorating (not surprising, given high interest rates and price increases on goods ranging from basic necessities and services to homes) has triggered zero-sum perceptions. Our zero-sum psychology leads us to believe that there is not enough for everyone. This causes people to rely more on their own close networks at the expense of others, exacerbating political divisions. Whatever the reality, even the perception of zero-sum conditions can create a zero-sum reality as people choose not to work with each other.
Well-intentioned attempts to help us get along or correct past injustice can further divide us by reifying subgroups at the expense of the larger group. The ethnic and racial boxes we check for college, scholarship, and job applications embody categories like African American, Asian American, Latino, and white. These categories are choices. They mask other possible cohesive groups. Does a rich child of color, like former Harvard president Claudine Gay, the daughter of wealthy Haitian immigrants, have more in common with Black Walmart workers who might check more of the same boxes than their wealthy White counterparts? Is focusing on ancestry and ignoring other forms of privilege the best way to close racial wealth gaps?
Evolutionary theory and empirical evidence reveal that race is not a natural category. We evolved with people who are like us. The social categories we create and reify influence perceptions of who is who. to them and who We. Combined with zero-sum perceptions, this is a recipe for polarization and conflict.
The science of cooperation reveals that we can get along well, but it’s also easy to drift backwards into conflict. The danger today is that the consequences of potential conflict are higher than ever, as the scale of cooperation now runs into hundreds of millions, if not billions. By unlocking win-win gains through collaboration for mutual benefit, weakening rather than reifying subgroup differences, and talking to each other across our differing views, we remind ourselves of what we share and what we can achieve by working together.
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