UNDERSTANDING THE BENEFITS OF COOPERATION:

Understanding the need for and benefits of cooperation has everything to do with why some groups of people survive, prosper, and are more successful than other groups. Focusing on that need for cooperation is a central tenet of many forms of conflict resolution. Two theories are important to understand in this realm: one is the idea that cooperation, not competition, is most productive in social interactions and human tasks; and two, cooperation is a human core capacity we are hard-wired to understand and use.

Kurt Lewin, Morton Deutsch, and the international social psychology movement over the past sixty years have turned the Darwinian theory of “survival of the fittest” on its head as it relates to conflict resolution. The trend in the past was to believe that competition always moved humans in a long-term positive direction while now it is commonly accepted, and theorized through extensive research, that cooperation is more natural and works better to resolve conflicts and create conflict management systems (Deutsch, Workshop Notes). Taken from his workshop notes in 2004, Morton Deutsch said the following:

"The focus of much of my work in the field of conflict resolution has been centered on the question: What determines whether a conflict takes a constructive or destructive course? After much research and thought, I came to the following conclusions:

1.) A conflict is likely to take a constructive course if it is viewed as a mutual problem to be worked on together in a cooperative process; a conflict is likely to take a destructive course if it is defined as a win-lose conflict in which the conflicting parties engage in a competitive process to determine who wins and who loses.

2.) The typical effects of a successful cooperative process when introduced into a conflict, that is not already strongly determined, tend to induce a cooperative, constructive process of conflict resolution. Such typical effect includes: open, honest communication; friendliness and readiness to be helpful to one another; enhancement of the other’s power and well being; and mutual trust and trustworthiness. In contrast, the typical effects of a competitive process tend to induce a destructive, competitive process of conflict resolution. These typical effects include: communication designed to deceive; hostility and obstructiveness directed toward the other; attempts to weaken the power of the other and to keep or place the other in an inferior position; mutual suspicion and untrustworthiness. (Workshop Notes 2004)"

Deutsch’s life work is relevant to this study as it solidly outlines our common human propensity to cooperate in order to be most efficient, survive as a species, and flourish. Other researchers take this argument further and suggest that many primates, including humans, understand from a very early age, maybe from birth, that cooperation is a key to survival.

Reconciliation (cont....)

The research in early childhood reconciliation behavior is limited but at least one early childhood study reveals important information about children and post-conflict interactions. The study involved controlled observation of children in Russia, the US, Sweden, and Italy. They ranged in size from 20 participants to 120 participants, split nearly evenly between boys and girls, and all aged three to seven years old. Although the research was limited in scope and did not involve cross-cultural conflicts, it produced three results that I find of value to this project: (1.) through controlled observation they “consistently demonstrated a tendency in young children to make peace with their peers following a conflict-induced separation.” (Butovskaya et al. 248) and (2.) Within the Russian and US findings a conclusion was drawn that “Perhaps the simplest way of explaining these results is to suggest that both interactions and relationships matter to young children and that young children’s peacemaking reflects children’s motivation to repair damage to both” (Butovskaya et al. 252). And finally, a very interesting thesis in this study finds that the children’s tendency to make peace increases as they get older and may have roots in cultural expectations. This age related result counters the theory that the behavior is only innate and adds to the complexity of the discussion. It may also be that this age related result correlates to normal childhood physiological developments. If humans are born with some ability to reconcile post-conflict, and environmental influences can change our use of this inherent talent, won’t some cultures build upon this talent and learn to get better at post-conflict management while others lose (perhaps un-learn) the ability and find themselves with fewer ways to manage conflict after it has started?

The importance of the relationship between the suggested innate capacity we have to reconcile and the potential for that capacity to be enhanced or diminished through societal learning is significant. To a certain extent this single childhood study puts us on notice that even if we can rely on our parties having the capacity to reconcile, we must also concern ourselves with the varying levels of ability to access that capacity in each of them. The evidence explored so far strongly suggests that we are going down the right path in expecting people we work with in conflict to have the ability to reconcile their differences, and perhaps the desire as well.

Next time we'll dive into cooperation....