Member-only story
I found this study particularly interesting because we often focus on people and their personalities rather than the context they’re in. Contexts are more influential than many people think in guiding human behaviour. This particular study explored this by looking at various groupings, small and large, and how different aspects influence cooperative behaviour. Something society and business is very interested in.
These researchers separated domains, for example, work may be one domain, and family life may be another. What is interesting is that if a strategy is successful this may then be copied by others in the environment. This could be negative, you may think, with selfish behaviour replicating just as much as cooperative behaviour. However, what they found is that the larger the social groups the higher the cooperation but also as the amount of domains increases so too do cooperative behaviours.
In business this would mean look to large groups to collaborate in, increase the amount of overlap between different groups, but also reward cooperative behaviours.
This research also bodes well for modern society despite the perceived negative influence of social media!
Reference:
Qi Su, Alex McAvoy and Joshua B. Plotkin.
Evolution of cooperation with contextualized behavior.
Science Advances, 2022
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abm6066
Andy publishes a quick hit every weekday on all things the brain, behaviour, and business. Please follow to receive your daily dose. Summary here, full list here.
Andy is author of leading brains Review a monthly e-magazine on all things the brain, behaviour, and business.
